Since I’m currently occupied with two other writing projects this week, I asked The Devotea if he could sub for me – and he obliged in his usual, wonderfully quixotic way.
And now, I turn you over to him…
Image mooched from Kolchak
Writing a guest post has a certain feeling.
That feeling you get when you are staying over with someone you know. We’ve all had it. Not family, where you can be yourself; not a hotel, where you can be an anonymous self-centred jerk, but somewhere where you feel you have to be on your best behaviour.
Well, today I’m guesting on someone else’s blog. And that makes it a little different.
The “observer effect” is often confused with Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle: whatever. Let’s just say that act of creeping around someone’s blog is the same as when you get up at 2:30am for a bathroom break in someone else’s house and start considering the likelihood of encountering someone in the hall versus the sheer hassle of trousers. It’s bound to make a difference to the way you think.
So my choice is either a raw, untrousered version of my usual offerings in the hope that I don’t offend, or being on my best behaviour.
I go way, way back with Geoffrey who is custodian of this blog, and therefore the householder in the metaphor I am currently beating to death. By ‘way back’ I mean at least 3 twitter years, which in real terms is several decades. We met in person at the Las Vegas Tea Expo of 2013; where he was the town tea-drunk and I was the out-of-towner. (Hell, I may have just changed metaphors there to a Western movie, but if so, then Michael J. Coffey was the sheriff).
So, I had to consider what to write about.
I considered talking of teas that both Geoff and I love, so as to share a lovely moment with my host. Sounds a little dull, though.
I considered talking of teas that Geoff has never heard of to impress with my host, but I’d probably have to make the teas up
I considered talking of teas that both Geoff and I hate, so as to share a lovely moment with my host AND rant a bit. But that’s a bit predictable, and besides we could always do that on ‘Beasts of Brewdom’. And our tastes are not entirely similar.
So, I’m left with guest posting about guest posting. I’m more uncertain than Heisenberg.
When you go and stay with a friend, sometime you are talking of it afterwards in terms of the visit to local attractions. The restaurants you visited. The unusual events that don’t worry the locals – such as feral pigs in the street or fighter jets going over every three minutes – but that seem unusual to out-of-towners. Or you talk of the house, the family, the garden. And of course, the tea you have shared.
I’ve often found, though, that best part of staying with someone is the bits that occur after you logically should have retired for the last night. When you’ll all said “Well, I really must be off to bed” and then pour another cuppa, sadly all too aware that the morrow will bring the sorrow of parting.
So you stay awake, or mostly awake, squeezing each minute and pretending that if you manage to stay awake, the morning will never come.
And so, in a guest blog I should have finished 7 or 8 sentences ago, I find myself finishing the last drop in my cup, and sharing another anecdote, trying not to fall off of the chair and thereby ensuring that the morning will never arrive.
Of that I’m certain.
You can find out more about The Devotea – and his wares – by going HERE.