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Lapsang

Lapsang was our black and white cat, who left only a month or so before Enya also did. In one sense, he defined the time of her stay with me, as he first materialised at her previous place on the eve on my arrival to collect her belongings. Sitting large and unflappable on the stone steps that led down to the unkempt, canal-side garden, he barely had to lift a paw to secure his future home.

Prone to sudden biting, Lapsang was an edgy companion, but I loved him. As a city-born one, his experience of being parachuted into the real, natural world seemed revelatory. You could almost see his hair stand on end as he first stood out there on the grass, beech trees distantly overhead, sheep baaing and birds flittering and chattering. I guess his sensory envelope had expanded from something cuboid and living-roomy to infinite and universal.

Before long, though, he was fully engaged. More so than Luke would have preferred, stumbling to me in tears many a morning after finding decapitated rabbit corpse adorning the bottom stair. Why he’d choose to crunch through the skull and leave the body, I don’t quite understand. Perhaps less fluff and fur to cough up later?

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Pot of tea

It dribbles at the spout, and that so offends me! Surely a carefully sharp edge could cut the flow crisply.

Steam drifts up from the cup, fine china not sucking away the heat prematurely, amber, golden, delicate tea looking beautiful, with one or two leaves swelling succulently in the bottom of the cup.

The china clinks and chinks with a satisfyingly stereotypically elegant set of associations. Miss Elizabeth Bennett.

The taste of butter and tannin. In the Himalaya, there truly is butter in the tea, but here it’s more of a long, almost chewable feeling on the tongue, yet with not a yak in sight.

The smell of tea leaves in a tin. The special teas I used to love, like Rose Pekoe – prising off the lid with the handle of a teaspoon, shaking the big black leaves against the ornate tin, and breathing in treacly dark, smokey smells.

The sense of repose and relaxation that a well set up tea scenario can offer – images of relaxed seating out on lavender-scented terraces, or cosy around wood stove on a crisp winter afternoon, fingerless knits clasped around an honest, steaming mug.

Sinking deeply into an armchair by the fire, legs folded under me.