Afternoon Tea for Two

We are loving the cooler weather of fall, and along with it comes one of Paul's other favorite pasttimes besides internet surfing for collectible Star Wars: drinking tea. Last weekend's High Tea at the Biltmore opened the season for us and so all the boxes of tea have come out of the cupboard. Since that event when our tea stash was rediscovered, I brought some of my Traditional Medicinal's Lemon Echinacea Throat Coat to comfort a fellow tea-drinking co-worker who had larangitis and I have been sipping some of my favorites such as Celestial Seasoning's "Sleepytime" tea, Trader Joe's "Bedtime"tea (notice any patterns) and just plain echinacea. Paul, being a traditionalist, has a favorite that he sticks with: English Breakfast.

I am not a tea snob by any means, and will dunk my teabag straight into a mug of cold water and microwave it (if I'm at work), but the best flavors seem to blend the good old fashioned way: steeped slowly in a teapot. 9 times out of 10 I drink it out of a mug, but if there's a few extra minutes to spare I like to go whole hog. China teacups on saucers really adds to the elegance of a nice relaxing tea.

We have a china pattern by Wedgewood, called English Cottage, that we have been collecting since our wedding when we were so kindly given a tea set. The tea set is probably my favorite part of our china collection, but Paul and I keep adding to our stash by finding pieces on Ebay that we can't turn down, especially since our pattern was discontinued just after we got married. We have two teapots so we can each enjoy whatever tea we "fancy" as Paul would say.

After the relaxing Tea for Two that we had, I left for Fisherville, Virginia where I will be working this week. It is a fun group that I will be sampling with. I hadn't met any of them until today, but by golly we seem like fast friends already. There are potential plans in the workings for evenings of bowling, skating, movies, miniature golf and, believe it or not, they are already working at how to get us a tour at the nearby Alpaca Farm after work for my sake. I don't know how we can possibly be coming home with any money if we have a social calendar like this, but how fun!

In all truthfulness, the time change has messed with us all so despite the fun plans, everyone was yawning and had to painfully admit they were too tired for anything exciting. My new spinning wheel has been whirling like crazy tonight and with potential alpaca fiber in another day or two- life is sweet! The only thing I could wish for is for Paul to be here with me.