DB Lenck's Mutinous Musings: Triple the Fun

Tea table in the Parlour

My triplet tea party today went very well!

My fellow triplets, being still young and foolish, decided to walk all the way from Abingdon to Oxford, a 4.5 hour long walk along the towpaths, punctuated by showers and miscellaneous muddy encounters. My home was the last stage of their journey, and I was to give them Afternoon Tea to restore their flagging spirits after their ordeal.

So while they were trudging through the blizzards I was peacefully at home, cutting sandwiches, arranging cakes, and laying the table in the Parlour. Several times I had to stop and turn off all electrical appliances - there was thunder and lightning, right above the house, judging by the non-interval between the flash and clap. Better safe than sorry!

There are few greater joys and cozy comforts than being snugly ensconced in one's house while outside the elements rage!

Finally the little group arrived, somewhat bedraggled, but, luckily for them, filled with considerable hunger (and thirst - we had four large pots of tea among us!). They managed to eat most of the sandwiches and quite a bit of cake, and miscellaneous other bits and pieces as well. As usual the candied-dipped-in-dark-chocolate-orange-peel was the greatest hit, and got demolished almost completely during the later, filling-in-the-gaps part of the tea party.

We tried to steer away from the less digestible topics of conversation at first, to ensure a peaceful completion of the meal, but after the sandwich phase That Awful Result could no longer be banished and we were soon knee-deep in current politics. Naturally enough we all agreed on all issues, so no disharmony blighted our afternoon.

Meanwhile my great role model Queen Victoria gazed benevolently down at us, and there was no doubt in our minds that she, too, would have been completely on our side, if only she had lived long enough. Or could you imagine this great sovereign of the imperial age approving of her subjects retreating into Little Englander isolation, rather than expanding into the rest of Europe and embracing it as a replacement empire? If Victoria's subjects had been as unenthusiastic and obstructive about their colonies as Elizabeth's subjects are about the EU, the empire would have never gotten anywhere!

In modern parlance, like, duh!