Ah, civilisation at last...

I bought myself an early birthday present today. This morning was mobility training in Civic with Anthea, my instructor, and after finding important landmarks like Electric Shadows (the alternative cinema) she was giving me a tour of Canberra Central. We were down on the food court level when I suddenly turned to her and said, "What is that beautiful smell?" We walked a little further and found the source - a shop dealing exclusively in loose leaf teas, teapots and other assorted tea-related paraphenalia. And I died and went to heaven. (Well, literally speaking, I walked in the front door, but that doesn't sound nearly so nice).

While I lived in Perth I didn't drink much tea. We had the usual array of bagged tea - I bought Cam one of those wooden Twinings boxes with about fifteen varieties for Christmas a couple of years ago; by the time I left it was probably holding something more like thirty - but I guess the hot weather and the lack of a good store selling loose leaf tea meant that if I drank it, it was as a wake up tonic of earl grey with milk and sugar. I missed the loose leaf stuff though. In Sydney there used to be a store in QVB that was very similar to the one I found today, only you could sit there and have tea and cake. It became a regular meeting place for Joana and I when she left uni, and I was always on the lookout for something similar in Perth.

So this morning I saw the cutest teapot. It's one of those stainless steel ones with an open handle, an infuser and a very tight lid. Apparently it'll hold four cups worth of tea and will keep them warm to the last drop. This, I decided, sounded like a justifiable expense, given that my room is upstairs and the kitchen is downstairs. While there is a kettle in a common area upstairs, it's carpeted and there isn't a lot of bench space for someone with bad sight and slightly off balance to fuck up and not get hurt. So I bought the teapot. And then I had to get some tea to go in it, of course, so I now have fifty grams of their Red Fruits infusion.

Suffice it to say that I am a very happy camper. I am also champing at the bit to get home and try this tea, even though it's the warmest day in ages here.