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"Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to while we long to make music that will melt the stars", 'I like my coffee like I like my women. In a plastic cup.' - Eddie Izzard, A riveting knob, Blushing pot, Curious finds and oddities, knicky knacky noo, Leave the bears alone man *madface*, orphans of time, Tea up, The long dark teatime of the soul - DA
Here is one of Esme’s teapots, a quirky joy of a type named ‘Blushware’ produced by a company called Burslem, of Staffordshire, and deriving from the late 1800s, or early 1900s, most likely. I hadn’t seen any such pots since I was a mere spatiotemporal speck upon a rather younger Cloud, and thought it so unusual I took my twenty-foot-high jar of pennies out of the dungeon and carried a suitable sackful to the seller.
It’s an orphan piece, for is broken in parts and has its knob riveted on (casts a warning glance at the audience). The spout is chipped too, and apparently it had been on sale for so long due to such imperfections. I love giving pieces that are damaged, yet which are still very beautiful, a home, as they are unwanted orphans. It is not about valuations or investments for me, and I collect purely to enjoy the object, to feel its age, to know that way back when, someone else will have loved it and perhaps mused to themselves, ‘What happens when I am dead and gone? Where will you, my wondrous teapot, end up, smashed and trashed?’
Well, doubtless it has survived many owners prior to Esme and I shall have a clause in my will stating that someone of good character must further adopt it (and all the other many orphans upon the Cloud, who may well start to feature on here as I’m warming to the subject of showing my wares to one and all), doing so on pain of being cursed for eternity if not obliging. Seems reasonable enough. As it happens, in this case, the teapot, against all the odds, pours better than any other I own. This is a pleasant bonus.
smartcapture
And much as I was telling Bela how much I enjoy tea sets made up of various odds and ends, I must admit I’d love to have teacups and saucers to match this, for it has such a cracking ‘Alice in Wonderland’ feel to it!.
Esme's Cloud 
I can see why this teapot spoke
To you and you highlighted it well in the photos -;)
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Why thank you Prior! I’m pleased you see the beauty in it. I know it may well be a tad brash for some, but sometimes busy and wild is just what’s needed.
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Exactly and I can feel the personality! It is curious that it pours so well too and that you are using it! Nice…
I also like what you said about who would get this when you are gone….
When my husband’s grandmother passed her house had a lot of collectibles and I wish she made a short note of who she wanted what to go to…
Maybe that would have been impossible –
But I do wonder this for some of my (very few left) little collectibles that spoke to me – would be sent to a thrift store or maybe trashed? Hm
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Oooh you were in my spam! Found you now, outrageous business, WP putting perfectly normal folks into a tin of spam.
Make your own list now, that’s what I’ve been doing, it’ll make things easier for everyone else and also gives me a chance to write something about the bits and bobs, give them a small history and a bit of obvious life, for I firmly believe old china, old anything really holds time inside them, you can feel it if you close your eyes and rest, I do the same with stones, always feeling stones I am, and minerals, I’m no crystal chanter, I just love the power of time inside them.
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Hi – well I think it is not WP – but the aski site that helps curtail spam – and maybe my dangerous words are red flags – lol
__
anyhow, thanks for the tip with the list making – I will try and get to that for the art and a few other treasures hiding around
and I told my hubs
“just burn all journals”
hahha
and like the way you shared about the energy with older things
🙂
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It’s all the Gods and Medium-sized dogs if truth be told (looks from side to side all conspiratorial-like), keep the red flags flying!
You’re very welcome, things get a bit giddy, up here on the Cloud, but we’re a fine, rag-tag bunch and if anyone knows about energy with older things, ’tis I, what with being a few hundred years old – no botox – and I find age brings the best or the very worst out of folks. The best end up here. So do the worst, but they leave in a hail of sticky buns very swiftly I can tell you.
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hahhah – you are so funny – and no botox here = sunshine – sleep and good food and then embracing patina as best we can – eh?
and have you seen where word press sites link to “flash player”
I think WordPress needs to check on security updates for it
certain sites when you press reply or like or try to comment says
Update flash” and takes you to a new page
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Embracing patina. Oooh I like that, it’s a fine name for a poem that is. I frisk everyone for inspiration whenever they visit the Cloud I’m afraid and take any that appears, having said that one o my aims here is to inspire others, be it to write, to dance, to laugh, all the positive paths, so having made you laugh makes for a successful day on the Cloud – beams back.
“flash player” – Don’t get me on the subject of flashing, hahahahaha. No, I know what you mean and have had that. Having said all that about WP it’s still head shoulders, hat and feathers above the problems bloggers get on Blogger’. This is primarily Google’s fault.
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and I am sure I got the embracing patina from somewhere else (nothing new under the sun, eh??) and so glad to share
and lagging again with your flashing humor – you are so funny
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❤
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Well, we best all stand back and wait for his appraisal. You know, that evil lovechild of Arthur Negus and Judith Chalmers, the roseate-rouged rogue, the salmon baron, he who pleases in cerise — I speak of the Pinkster, of course. Probably a little understated, he’ll say, for an everyday teapot.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
-Esme falling off the Cloud at Hariod’s cheek
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I think it is a master piece of flowery curvaceous loveliness. Only the best things come with a few bumps and bruises. They have lived xxx
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Thank you dear Mantha, I’m loving your description, and yes, the bruises and scars may not be chosen, but by gum they give character.
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Reclines on cloud and has a nap
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‘It’s an orphan piece, for is broken in parts’ – it’s a ballad ~ George
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Ooh, almost a play too with that capture! Thank you George, always a pleasure to have you ‘pon Cloud.
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Its utterly charming! Alice would have been enchanted with it as well 😁
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I think so too, it’s lucky I’m mad as a hatter as that ties in nicely as well. Thanks Val ❤
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You’d like matching cups, really? I love your Roslyn China cups by Reid & Co. in the Imari with Green pattern which I see in picture 3. I think that colour combination is late 20’s 😉
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I was wondering if anyone would see them, and there you are – see Hariod’s comment! Hahahahaha. Well spotted, they’re a set of four rather than the original six that I found in a charity shop with one spare saucer, five side plates and a milk jug to match. It’s so very delicate in design and yes, I’ve had tea with friends using pretty much everything that can be used. I don’t let these things sit about when they were made to be handled (sir), and it is indeed late twenties, which I only found out once parcelled up in the local newspaper and carted back to the Cloud. Some designs drag your eyes to them, so I tend to go with whatever speaks, as Prior said below. You have the palace, I have the Old Curiosity Shop, yet I think we’d both enjoy the other’s surroundings beams and raises both a teacup and an eyebrow, followed by her smallest finger raised ever-so high sporting a sticky bun balanced upon her head
And of course I’d like matching cups!! It’s the wildest teapot I’ve ever set eyeballs on.
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Do you sometimes listen to the piano late at night? Palaces and Clouds are for the most part a matter of the mind.
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I listen to all manner of notage late at night, have you a piece in mind? Palaces points at him, and Clouds points at herself are indeed just that, barring your actual palace, and my actual Cloud. Hahahahaha.
Here’s a fine slice of the keys, that I’m listening to right now.
Esme Cloud tinking and tinkling away
Esme Cloud drifting back and forth with
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Dancing Gods on a stick! That’s Russell’s teapot!!!
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Russell who?!!!
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Bertrand Russell. The kind of man you imagine always looking for soup.
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Perhaps the best comment ever left upon the Cloud.
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As far as the art of blog-commenting goes, you are, as ever, a consommé professional, John.
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Hahahahahahahaha.
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Ghexxchtui, oijhff&# @sdfr*6hjo
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Been at the tinnies again, cobber? Or spilt hot goulash on your goolies?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
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Aha! I had ‘Brand’ jump to mind, and the Small Lords only know what kind of a teapot he pours from. Well done John! You have tickled me and the Cloud superbly and managed to hold up two very droopy eyelids at this end whilst doing so.
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Heaven help us if Pink sees that. You know he’s c o m p e t i t i v e
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Tell me about it. I’m hiding from Hariod as well.
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I knew you were a big pot user. 🙂
It’s really quite lovely. There is something that makes tea taste even better when it’s poured from a beautiful vessel into one’s favorite cup. 🙂
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Ha. It’s useless to me as it turns out. Probably all for the best mind.
Hahahahahaha.
Thank you, yes, I recall your own tea cere,ony post from a while ago, it’s a beautiful thing the art of tea, the sharing of a teapot’s content. Unless it is Earl Grey, then it is the devil’s work.
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I don’t think I’ve ever met a tea that causes me to gag. lol But yes, certain teas are definitely better than others! Orange Pekoe is what I use for chai. And I quite like Darjeeling as well. I’ll occasionally dabble in others, but as you noted, my morning ritual is all I need! lol
It’s interesting that you talk about how well your pot pours. About 12 years ago a pottery student at my university (who as since become a dear friend) was commissioned by yours truly to make a tea pot. She is an excellent potter, but had never made a tea pot before. She didn’t realize what a challenge she has taken on, and many professional manufacturers fail, even if only small ways. The angle of the pout, it’s height both at the top, and at the bottom where it connects to the pot, the shape of the spout where the tea pours out…all these matter a great deal when pouring tea. And it is very bothersome when these things aren’t right, not the least of which is when pouring a boiling hot liquid you want it in your cup, not over the table and down the side of the pot. One of our teapots is pretty good, except sometimes steam infiltrates the lid and causes an air tight seal, and the tea barely pours. Initially I instinctively tilted it more to get the tea to pour, only to have the weight of the tea, now pushing against the lid, push open the lid and have it gushing out everywhere. Good times. lol Now that I know it sometimes happens, I’m prepared! A well designed teapot is a lot rarer than people realize.
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I suspect UK folks know more about rubbish teapots than most, so many years of ordering tea in cafes, only to have the dark brown brew dribble all over the table, the saucers, yourself, as you say, anywhere but the actual cup. This is quite true and the devil of it all when purchasing one is that you have no idea at all how it pours. Well, I suppose these days if you go to Amazon or the like there will be reviews which helps, but also takes some the thrill of the gamble out of it. Hahahahahaha. I have been exceptionally lucky, every single teapot I have and do own does the job perfectly. I was truly amazed by this one, the Wonderland pot, expecting it to be a messy affair (always the best kind), when it’s tremendously elegant. I don’t like metal teapots, glass ones are interesting, but I prefer a good porcelain pot ultimately, the older the better. I don’t have a particular collection, only four at present, and they’ve appeared when they’ve popped up somewhere. Much like my teacups and saucers.
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I prefer porcelain as well. I suspect your fortune with teapots is just that like everything and everybody else in the world they just want to please, and don’t dare cause you any trouble. Unlike your own feet who turn on you the moment you have a little too much to drink. 🙂
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Praying to the porcelain Gods isn’t one of my favourite activities but needs must at times, the porcelain throne and all that – falls about, but hopefully not into the loo But I digress, which is very unusual for me as you know – beams.
‘just that like everything and everybody else in the world they just want to please, and don’t dare cause you any trouble’ – Hahahahaha, earthlings are generally accommodating to Esme, but the West Wind is a right bugger and don’t get me started on the flying monkeys and Jack Frost. Still, you can’t please everyone, and thank you, plus you are absolutely spot on so far as my own limbs are concerned, they take great pleasure in darting off in opposite directions all of a sudden. I should stay on my throne* really and manage the universe from there (*not my porcelain one).
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I only have a few bits and pieces, but I can definitely appreciate this elegant old tea pot. Delighted that it’s found a home with you. Beautiful things that last through the ages carry a little bit of their former owners with them. I think of it as a tiny bit of immortality.
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That’s exactly it! It’s one of the reasons I love old books too – they can keep even the most obscure writers alive for hundreds of years, and there’s something very special about that.
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lmao – put that library down before you hurt yourself. :p
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I go to ‘used stuff’ stores that might be mistaken for Antique Sales if you didn’t notice the scuffs and dings. I love it. I’m always on the hunt for the missing item–or one of a kind treasure. I never know if I will spy something I cannot live without. That said, it does become a question of where will I put that thing when I get it home? Which is probably a sign that I am teetering on the brink of becoming an obsessive hoarder–or something like that. While I’ve never seen any Staffordshire tea sets, I’ll be certain to keep an eye out now. You never know what you might find while on the hunt for the irresistible something just around the next corner!
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They’re treasure troves! I last bought an early 1900s jug and bowl from a charity shop that had a matching soap lidded soap dish. I already have a vintage set, there’s really no room for another but it was beautiful and only £12.99 for the whole set! I am entranced by a bargain, however, the Cloud only has so much room, so you are a gal after my own heart there.
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