A walk on the shady side

Jean Jack invited me for tea this afternoon.  We both have been appointed to the newly established village committee grandly entitled the Commission de Culture.  He explained that his parents gave him the English spelling of his second name in recognition of the Allied liberation of France (he was born in 1946.) It was nice to walk down the river path to his house and spend an hour taking tea.  As an anglophile he wanted to do the tea ceremony correctly so we had cherry cake in his eco garden with marigolds, poppies and birdsong  by the river.  I was presented with a selection of teas.  I hadn't the heart to say that I usually drink builders' tea with milk. I chose a perfumed green tea called Rêve de Martinique  (dream of Martinique) which was very agreeable  and we whiled away a pleasant hour.