Small objects of memory

I drink tea every day. I love the ritual of it: boil the water, cover the leaves, the enforced wait of steeping time, remove the leaves or the tea bag, and another wait until it's cool enough to drink.The last time I saw my parents in their home was in June 2023. My mother gave me her mother's sugar tongs, and I use them to get the tea bag out of my tea. I have always thought sugar tongs and sugar cubes are the height of poshness, and I love using these. I wonder how often my grandmother used them. She did keep sugar cubes in her house in a glass bowl and I was so impressed by them.Silver-plated sugar tongs on a red cloth.I use loose-leaf tea most of the time, but my daily cuppa is a Yorkshire Gold tea bag, so I can use these tongs. Once I've removed the tea bag, I wash the tongs off and put them back in a silver Reed and Barton sugar bowl, with a few other precious utensils. One is a tea spoon I got in Covent Garden market while visiting Jessica in 2018 on the back end of a work trip…