It’s a Snailvasion!

I’m not one for band wagons. so when I started seeing posts and pictures about ‘tea pets’, I just ignored what is, on the face of it, a silly idea.

They are basically little ornamental creatures that lay about your teaware, offering what appears to be very little to the experience.

Or so I thought…until… someone in my facebook feed posted a picture of the tea they were having, and included the image, and words “sparkly tea snail”.

I cannot seem to find the post now, in fact I’m not sure who it was that posted it, but the key information included in the post was that the source of the sparkly tea snail was Jo Johnson of A Gift of tea.

Jo is a great friend of ours, so within seconds, I sent a message suggesting I wished to acquire a tea pet.

The answer came back within minutes, and it was unexpected. “One is already on it’s way to you”.

Well, that’s a bit awkward. Why? Well, my dilemma was: what if it’s not a snail? What if it’s a sea cucumber or hyena or jellyfish. I want a snail!

Why a snail? Well, Lady D and I have a fondness for the form of snails. Years ago, we were browsing books about ancient art and we found a picture of a sculpture from the ancient Persian Archaemenid Dynasty. The archaeologists who found it looked at its curled body and protuberant horns and described it as ” a horned serpent”. Any kid could have spotted the fact it was actually a snail. Apparently, snakes had some sort of significance, so the archaeologists decided it must be so. Ever since, we’ve loved art involving snails.

Anyway, I needn’t have worried. It soon became clear that snails are the central focus of Jo’s range of individual hand made tea pets. My friends Geoff Norman and Darlene Myers-Perry posted pictures of theirs. (Geoff named his “Vladamir”).

Theresa Wong posted this photo.

And so, he arrived. All our fears of his non-snailiness were unfounded.

If you are reading this, you need to be part of the snailvasion. Get onto Jo’s A Gift of Tea site immediately!

Meanwhile, we named ours after the Persian Archaemenid King who, even though he was probably not the sanest person ever, was so badly portrayed in the appalling film ‘300’.

Ladies and Gentklemen: This is Xerxes!