Rose Chintz Cottage: 11/14/15

Saturday 14 November 2015

Tea and The Tale of An Old Pancake Jug

Hello friends ~ It's Saturday morning and Hubby is at the gym so I'm enjoying a quiet cup of tea in my Johnson Brothers Friendly Village teacup.

This china is so perfect for Autumn and the winter months.

The Ice House

Each piece of Friendly Village depicts a scene from our past; an ice house, a covered bridge, a school house, among other things. A truly old-fashioned pattern which suggests a life of hard work yet such wonderful sentiment.

The School House

It hung on a pail that stood on a stool
By the door of an old-time country school,
And the water it dipped was cool and sweet
Fresh as mountain dew in the schoolroom's heat.

And never was water so good, so cool,
As dipped from the pail of that old-time school,
Along with the schoolhouse of another day,
The common tin dipper has passed away. - Margaret Neel

I am so glad that they have captured these olden day scenes under a glaze to be enjoyed forever.

Today my School House plate has an assortment of home made muffins on it. You may choose cranberry, blueberry bran, or raisin bran.

Tea is Earl Grey.

Tea is quiet and our thirst for tea is never far from our craving for beauty. ~ James Norwood Pratt

Sugar Maples teapot

As I sip my cup of tea I can't help but reflect upon the days of my childhood. With the Christmas season nearing, I tend to become very sentimental. I suppose a lot of us are like that around this time of year.

Across the room, sitting on my chippy white table covered in old lace, is my Granny's pancake jug.

I'm not sure how old the jug is but my Auntie P seems to think that it probably came from my grandmother's grandmother. So we're talking over one hundred years old.

The old pancake jug has been on a long journey. Long ago it served my great-grandmother up on Caledonia Mountain, NB. Then it accompanied my Granny to her home in Bridgedale, NB. {now Riverview}. My auntie, my mother, and their siblings enjoyed many pancakes made in this old jug.

My Granny always used a very large spoon to mix pancake batter in this jug. The pancakes were made from her own buckwheat flour which was ground from their own buckwheat grown on the farm.

Every Saturday night Granny made piles of pancakes and served them with baked beans for supper. She must have had a strong arm because the jug is quite heavy. I have no problem picturing Granny wearing her apron and stirring the jug to make pancakes. I remember she was a marvellous cook.

My auntie has had this pancake jug in her possession for years, ever since my beloved Granny passed, and she gave it to me the last time I visited her in New Brunswick.

The old brown jug is a little beaten up. There is a nick in the handle and a crack in the body and some may think it not very pretty, but to me it is priceless. To me it's more than an old piece of crockery. It's a jug of memories.

So, here it sits now in my home with an ivy spilling out of it. I just noticed how much like a heart shape the ivy is growing in. A lot of love had been stirred up in that old jug!

The jug is a treasured piece of my past reminding me of two of my favourite people; my auntie and my grandmother.

Memories are timeless treasures of the heart. -unknown

Savouring my hot cup of tea in an old-fashioned teacup and thinking about my childhood fills me with a sense of nostalgia which is hard to put into words. I only know how thankful I am for the blessing of a warm loving home, a warm cup of tea and such lovely memories.