Tea Time Tuesday!

It's that wonderful day of the week when our thoughts turn to the refined notion of tea parties, lovely china, and good friends to share them with!  Martha over at Martha's Favorites, Sandi over at Rose Chintz Cottage and Inspirations, Wanda Lee over at Plumed Pen and Lady Katherine over at Lady Katherine Tea Parlor are all hosting tea-themed memes!  What a great way to meet new people and enjoy viewing the unique tea things that each person has so thoughtfully included in their blog.

Today, I am featuring two of my favourite tea cups.  For some reason, I find myself always drawn to Aynsley china.  If there are 10 tea cups to view at a thrift shop, my eye just invariably seems to go to the one in the lot that is an Aynsley!  The two tea cups I'm showing you today are both the same Aynsley pattern, although they have different background colours, one being blue and one being pink.  Apparently there are others available too, and I would love to add to my collection some day so I have one of each background colour.

I love the fact that while there is a small landscape on the outside of the tea cup, 

the largest, most beautiful landscape is hidden inside!  

The bluebell pattern is so lovely, a landscape pattern with soft blues and rose colours, it never fails to evoke the soft cool Spring days one would find in England.   After emigrating to Canada, one of the few things my Mum missed about England was the long Spring weather.  Here in Southern Ontario, Canada, things get hot fast and from one day to the next everything changes dramatically in the Spring.  My Mum used to tell us stories of walking in a forest carpeted with bluebells and it always seemed the most magical of places we could ever imagine!

And speaking of cool Spring weather, we had a wonderful break from the hot, steamy summer weather yesterday, with the arrival of a sudden downpour.  Even the cicadas stopped their incessant buzzing while the rain poured down in sheets, drumming loudly on the porch roof while I sat serenely on our swing, so enamored with the raindrops that I found myself setting aside the book I was reading so I could enjoy the spectacle of a rainfall.  Once the rain had lessened, I snuck inside to grab my camera.