rainbows in curved air (or curves in rainbowed air)

I Lost My Sherpa @ Tchai Ovna

I finally got around to having tea @ tchai ovna, Otago Lane, Glasgow west end. I had been told about the place & read how ‘trendy’ with the belle & sebastians & pastels ….etc of this world it was. It is also a fine haunt for library types.

I have a soft spot for houses full of Dickensian nooks & crannies, mazes, hidden rooms & to be honest I was taken back to those snow-bound, welcoming tea house in katmadu. I am sure with a roaring fire in the winter the reverberations would be stronger.

With the current fad for coffee, I must admit I have become lazy in my tea making techniques. Not that long ago, I used to take great care & spend time brewing ‘proper’ tea, but like everything else today, its got to come quicker, faster, instant as we rush through our lives to what end? Are we happier with all we can achieve in a day, rushing, speeding, pushing, pulling……..It is time to ‘slow down world’ as mr leitch called one of his albums.

Sipping tea in Otago Lane certainly gets you to take stock, catch a breath especialy if you attend on a Monday night & Yaman (steve) is playing sitar & flute. (I was chatting to him outside during a smoke break as we looked over a sodden view of the Kelvin below – it could have been the Himalayan foothills? – it was odd to stand there chatting about the music school, that he attends in Varanasi (Benares), that I can still remember after all these years!

Other memories come flooding back…e.g. throwing clay cups onto the railway line after a hot, milky sweet cup of tchai. I did mention before about my fondness for the old Ceylon Tea Centre that was in Buchanan Street.

Pint mugs of tea in Manchester as I was studying for my exams. Small glasses of sweet arab tea & a sheesha pipe in Saudi Arabia. Tea houses in Turkey, Iran, Pakistan & India. Afghani tea stops, where I shared a roaring fire sheltering from sub zero temperatures, with pilgrims on their way to Makkah. I quickly earned respect by moving away from the fire when new pilgrims arrived out of the cold.