FebulousFebruary 2026: The Old Photograph

A Cup o’ Tea

As I prepare to leave Yunnan, Southern China, I realise how much curiosity I have for The Ancient Tea Horse Road.

Over a thousand years of movement and exchange,

Tea moving through mountains on the backs of horses,

To the cuppa tea we love across the islands of Britain and Ireland.

I kept seeing old photographs and images of the tea horses and the ancient road.

And everywhere I went,

In courtyards, hotels and shops,

I noticed great carved wooden tea tables.

Heavy, solid and beautiful.

Ancient with the modern,

With ornate drains built in. 

Kettles are self-filling and temperature regulating

And even automised cups rinsers.

Throughout history, boiling water is deliberately spilled and allowed to run away.

Everywhere people make tea on the “chá tái” 茶台table with calm precision,

Water flowing freely,

Warming and cleansing,

Gestures are unhurried.

I’ve been fascinated, but I didn’t understand.

I felt distant.

Then, on my final day in Shaxi, I wandered into a small teahouse in a courtyard.

A chance encounter.

I said simply,

“I would like to drink tea”

And a mutually joyous encounter unfolded.

The woman also became my teacher.

She showed me how to make tea.

She told me that Chinese tea drinking is ritualistic, 

“Gongfu cha” 功夫茶, means tea made with skill and care,

Not as performance,

But as something lived, ordinary, daily.

What tea, not oolong,

But local raw Pu’er

Instead of a teapot, she used a “gaiwan” 盖碗,

Not a teapot, but a bowl with a lid,

And an elegant glass jug,

And tiny cups.

The gaiwan surprised and delighted me.

The angle of the lid.

The speed of the pour.

Listening to the leaves.

The gaiwan hides nothing.

You smell the tea change.

Warming cups, waking leaves. 

The water spilled everywhere is not careless

Water flows; attention stays

It has been used for centuries because it teaches you how to be present and allows you to connect.

Smell the aroma,

Taste the tea

And chat just like any ordinary day.

The old photos were of the Ancient Tea Horse Road and the transmission of tea from China to the world.

The transmission of tea physically and culturally.

An ancient ritual continues, now alongside modern kettles and technology.

What stayed with me was the sense of continuity.

The lineage is old.

The form is alive.

A ritual that still fits on a table anywhere in the world.

People sitting, pouring, talking.

Tea drunk not for ceremony, but for life, ordinary and everyday

Sarah Heap, Whitstable 

Coming Home

My soul is in the cropped-bleached grasses of the outback.

In my flip-slops flapping wildly dancing in the dust of red tracks.

In the days of endless skies that skin the blue-glass from my eyes

and the very-cherry legs of birds bit bare by desert flies.

Yet my soul is in a forest dripping dew at every dawn

onto silver domes with humans in that leave the second morn-

ing. When it’s free of them, I’m naked, scorching creeks with fiery limbs

or setting lusty sculptures down in mud through which my spirit brims.

And my soul is sweating oranges on islands crunched by storms

It’s in finger-sized bananas that the heavy, moist air warms

It skits on wings of butterflies and sits on ridge-backed dogs.

It’s been tasted by mosquitoes. Dipped in fusty-pungent fogs.

My soul is curled-up crying on a river slow with ice

and it’s staring like an eagle down at cows the size of mice.

It’s in a sea of glittered jellyfish, an ocean thick as milk.

It craves the heavy flight of pelicans like a countess craving silk.

It sings its songs to the rhythm of the gecko’s two-toned screech

and suns itself like a tourist on a sweaty-oily beach.

It writhes in labyrinths of ants that undo continents

and it is quite aware that eating bugs is very common sense.

I heard it once speak languages I couldn’t understand.

I felt it gulp a scorpion sting with the skin of its left hand.

Yes, my soul is going global, never flinching, on the roam

with a shocking-mad propensity to always

call me home.

Renee, Brighton

The Old Photograph

Well look at her —

me, forty years ago,

hair like a shampoo advert

and trousers so tight

I’m amazed I survived the decade.

There I am,

posing like I invented confidence,

chin up, chest out,

absolutely certain the world

was lucky to have me.

And who’s that next to me?

Oh yes —

the ex I swore was “the one”

for at least three whole weeks.

Bless him.

He aged like milk,

I aged like a fine wine

(so I tell myself).

My friends said I was dramatic.

I wasn’t dramatic.

I was expressive.

There’s a difference —

and this photo proves it.

Look at that smile.

Look at those legs.

Look at that shirt

that could blind a small village.

Ah, youth.

I miss the energy,

not the decisions.

Still, I raise a glass

to that bold, hopeful,

slightly ridiculous man.

He had no idea

what a fabulous old queen

he’d grow into.

David, Glasgow

The Old Photograph

The old photo’s

either writing or colouring in..New School..

New home..

In a quiet countryside village, in sleepy Hertfordshire

where sheep and cows roam in fields and new lambs and calves are born..

Children play scrumpy in the few village neighbours’ gardens, innocently unaware that they are easily identified,  lol.

My school with an abundance of apples and pears to have in the summer holidays.

The good old fashion days, ungated.

Vanda Cummings, London

The Old Photograph

Two little girls,

sitting on a wall.

Are they twins?

No, but inseparable in their twinkly mischief.

Closer than pages in a book

but books can burn

and tragically 

those once thought to be identical

became opposites.

Meg, Llanbrynair

It captures both intimacy and fragility in a compact, memorable way. It’s the poem’s emotional hinge.

Creasing years

Through the creasing years
that photograph of Granny Murphy still makes me chuckle.

There she is in all her finery on the chapel steps at cousin Shelagh’s wedding, in one hand her rosary beads, a quiet anchor in a day of bustle.

Her hat, a small determined planet orbiting just above her wispy silvery strands.
The photographer probably called her name, she lifted her chin, and her whole wizened face smiled, chuffed to have made this precious moment. Click.

Only later, once it had made it to the album, did uncle Hugh notice the church across the road’s spire rising perfectly from the crown of Granny’s hat as if the Protestant building itself had chosen her as its new perch. Titters to belly laughs bubbled and tumbled through the family, with Aunty Mary nearly choking on her Battenberg.

Granny didn’t see the funny side.


Fiona, Kent

I see you Sweets

If I were your body I would splash about 

in the swimming pool of self-pleasure,

fill my lungs and dive deep, taut with 

tension. Then, when I could not hold 

it any longer, bob up released.

If I were your body I would call you 

to the bedroom pull your pants ankle down

forensic search your folds and holes 

for evidence of secretions or spills 

proof our lust.

If I were your body I would rut 

down on the forest floor where everything smells

where beasts crawl and slide 

and come. Splashes left to fertilise 

a rich and grateful ground.

Maj  Wales

Decades of photos.

All the usual suspects.

You know who you are.

Meg, Llanbrynmair

Unlearning

I see her.

Standing still.

Doing her best to be what’s expected.

She’s dressed up.

Looked at.

Measured.

Smiled at for getting it right.

Now inside…

something tightens.

Not because anything was wrong

but because she learns, right there,

that being seen means being judged.

That approval, lives out there, not in here.

The moment doesn’t break her.

It trains her. The programming begins.

She learns to watch herself.

To behave.

To perform.

To check whether she’s enough

before ever asking how she feels.

So learns to listen outward.

To cues.

To rules.

To expectations.

Her body, wise, responsive, loyal,

does what bodies do.

It adapts.

It learns when to stay quiet.

When to push on.

When to smile instead of speak.

It doesn’t forget, it’s just paying attention.

Now I look at her again.

I don’t want to fix her, or rescue her,

or tell her she should have known better.

I want to sit beside her

and say:

You didn’t lose your wisdom.

You learned to prioritise

someone else’s agenda.

We don’t need to fight anything.

We don’t need to unlearn with force.

We just change the conditions.

We listen inward.

We soften.

We trust the signals

that were always there.

This isn’t about becoming someone new.

It’s about coming back.

Now, 

this time,

she gets to lead.

Emma.

Chained 

Many years ago I was fit as and full of bravado and fun.

I rode a 500cc motorcycle and often had my girlfriend at the time as pillion, playfully roaming about the city. The Main Street was wide and full of life but less traffic then. It was a a sunny day and we had decided to head out with a vague intention of ending up somewhere doing something. I had given her the spare helmet and rode with my padlock and heavy duty security chain across my shoulder and chest, I was advised in later years that was a stupid idea in the event of an accident, but at the time that’s what bikers did. So we turned onto the Headrow probably well in excess of the speed limit, almost immediately I was ordered to stop by two coppers. I came to a standstill beside them and one of them shouted angrily ‘Alright Sonny boy are you two chained together? take your helmet off.’ I obliged and as I did his jaw dropped and his face turned to confusion then slight disbelief. ‘Umm you’re going too fast..you need to slow down and be a bit more careful..at least you put the helmet on her..ok on your way’ Sharing a smile of delight at our lucky escape off we sped.

Janet, Brighton