The Year of Living Vicariously

From Mystic Tea Room

The Blue Bird Tea Room, Bettwys-y-Coed, Wales, interior, postcard front. The small village of Bettwys-y-Coed ("Prayer-House in the Woods") is quite popular with tourists. The back of the card tells us that H. Byrd was the proprietor of the Coed-y-Celwyn ("Trees and Twigs") and Blue Bird Tea Rooms in Bettwys-y-Coed, and the maker of the card was The R.A.P. Co. Ltd., London. Filed in Wales Tea Rooms

On February 26th, 2020, at the age of 72, with the Covid-19 pandemic breaking out all over, my husband and i went into a self-imposed quarantine or lockdown. We decided to order all of our food online, to run our various businesses from home, and to engage with people remotely until such time as a vaccine was developed for the virus. On the anniversary of that date, which also happens to be the birthday of my late mother-in-law, who died during the course of this year, i find myself still too young to be eligible for the vaccine, and i realize that may be here for months. No one has prioritized vaccinating people such as we are, home-based writers, metaphysical merchants, and entrepreneurs.

In this year of living vicariously, i find that i have spent quite a lot of time scanning and uploading postcards of vintage and contemporary tea rooms. Obviously i am missing something in my life and am trying to make up for it. I love the experience of being served tea and treat-foods in cunning little out-of-the-way tea rooms and patisseries with Victorian, Edwardian, Mission, or Craftsman style architecture and furnishings -- but i don't love it enough to die for it.

I began the Year of Living Vicariously by randomly uploading tea room and tea cup images o this site. I went into overdrive in Summer by promising to scan and upload one tea room postcard per day from each of the 50 states and every foreign country for which i could find a card. I made that deadline, and then rested on my laurels, scanning and uploading other subjects of the past, particularly fortune telling cards.

On January 1st, realizing that i would not be returning to my shop any time soon, i started a Patreon account, as you all well know. Today i have returned to tea rooms for a one-day Patreon upload blow-out.

Unlike my other Patreon pages, which are being held back for one year, these brand-new card-scans will be seen by the public, and the links in each card's caption on thi page will lead you to its full-size image on its "home page" at the Mystic Tea Room. However, this article, part of my series "From the Land of Tea," i reserve for my Patrons. It is your support that has made this scan-travaganza possible.

So ... what is it about tea rooms?