On Old Ladies And Cubed Sugar

Today, my aunty Carole and I took Margo to an Antique Shop "Strip" in Boscombe. I luuuuurve antique shops, I have to avoid them like the plague or I'll end up with a house packed with knick-knacks and other people's memorabilia. Boscombe has a dozen antique shops and you can wander from one to another for a happy morning's browsing.

Margo bought some tea-plates. I said "I AM NOT BUYING ANYTHING" and then bought some tiny sugar-cube tongs, silver, with a little monk on them. I couldn't resist. I wish I could take a picture, but Sean has the camera... (I neeeed a new camera!)

My other grandmother, 'Dan' (for Gran!) once had the Archbishop (in Trinidad) around for tea (the story goes), and everything was perfect, genteel and colonial and terribly polite. Dan poured the perfect tea into perfect cups without spilling a drop, picked up the bowl of sugar cubes (brought in on the last ship from London) and her tiny tongs, and asked, "How many Lords, my Lump?"

Hence the Monk sugar tongs. In our house, we keep sugar cubes for the memory, and we've been using our fingers. Now we can use proper tongs, and  ask one another, "How many Lords?" And now, you'll know why we're giggling!