osprey_archer: (tea)
osprey_archer ([personal profile] osprey_archer) wrote2016-08-07 08:52 pm

Social butterflydom

I have been quite the social butterfly this weekend! I went to Indianapolis to visit my friend Becky, and we watched Song of the Sea, which is a gorgeous Irish animated movie about a little girl who can become a selkie - only no one knows it at the beginning, and her big brother blames her for their mother's disappearance - and the movie is about their changing relationship and magical adventures, drawn in a style inspired by medieval Irish art and just beautiful. I highly recommend it.

And then the next day [livejournal.com profile] evelyn_b stopped by as part of her road trip! And we had a lovely time: we went to a Mediterranean restaurant and chatted about L. M. Montgomery and Laura Ingalls Wilder, then repaired a bookstore (where she managed to add approximately a dozen books to my to-read list, although I only actually bought two of them, on the grounds that I can probably find the others at the library... although we'll see. It occurs to me that Gormenghast and A Canticle for Liebowitz might both be old enough that the library may not have them, even though they are minor classics), and then repaired to my favorite local cafe.

Which! I discovered that day! Sells tea by the pot!

(I attempted to include a photo of the teapot, but LJ won't load it and anyway you all know what a teapot looks like.)

I have not seen tea sold in pots since I left England. I am very excited about this, even though a whole pot of tea is actually a bit much for me to drink in a sitting. Clearly I will need to drag people here specifically for the purpose of making them drink tea with me.
thisbluespirit: (Northanger reading)

[personal profile] thisbluespirit 2016-08-08 09:12 am (UTC)(link)
Aw, that all sounds very nice! I'm glad you had a good time. :-)

[identity profile] osprey-archer.livejournal.com 2016-08-08 12:08 pm (UTC)(link)
It was pretty excellent! I acquired among other things a copy of Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night.
thisbluespirit: (chalet school)

[personal profile] thisbluespirit 2016-08-11 07:41 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, an excellent acquirement! (Although it's the only Peter Wimsey I really like, as I read it first in isolation and then was disappointed that none of the others were about female academics, because that was the bit I enjoyed the most. That could have been the series, Ms Sayers, I'd have read it.)

[identity profile] evelyn-b.livejournal.com 2016-08-16 07:40 pm (UTC)(link)
There are a lot of missed opportunities! Miss Climpson's Typist Pool and Detective Agency could also have been a great series. But Sayers knows what she likes and it's not a bunch of spinsters doing things; it's fast cars and dudes who talk too much.

Which is not entirely fair! She clearly has a soft spot for spinsters doing things; it's just that she only has so much time and attention and if she has to choose, talky dudes are going to win the day every time.
thisbluespirit: (agatha christie)

[personal profile] thisbluespirit 2016-08-17 08:28 am (UTC)(link)
I did eventually read the rest & I did enjoy them, but Gaudy Night still exists for me in this separate charmed bubble of that unknown second hand book I picked up just before getting on a train in an unfamiliar town, and thus Peter just can't compete and I just don't seem to be able to have the same sort of relationship to them that so many other people seem to.

I am still utterly freaked out by the bell-ringing one, though.