Past three o'clock on wintry days out, we'd go to "The Copper Kettle". By then galvanised zinc was in use and so the vintage kettle hung as décor in the teashop window. Warm inside, with a toasty aroma, and the low hum of conversation round tea-clothed tables, gave the place a fuller feel. All of us, refugees from the cold. Our usual pot of tea for four with scrambled eggs and sponge cake afters, with time enough to digest the last of the day and the dark to settle the end of matters.
In Britain the ancients mined the mineral from semi-superficial deposits, made gorgeous green ringed jewellery with malachite. Later tall Gothic spires were clad with copper sheets, as if in thanksgiving to the viridian God of mineral mines and more prosaically, fashioned into warming pans to raise the temperature of icy sheets for the wealthy. These now decorate the walls of pubs, restaurants and home county homes. reflecting our past.
Tangential Tellings on Thursday- the opposite of ekphrastic à la Teju Cole.
PoetryPix 