It was one of those occasions this morning, thankfully infrequent, where I was given a too-strong latte. There were times, years ago, where I would suffer these so as not to put anyone’s nose out of joint, but that was back in the days of only paying £1.50 for a latter. These days, paying a pound more, and tipping (a legacy of having a too-generous ex who got me into the habit of tipping in the café. If I had stopped that after we finished, the café would’ve known the tipping was her idea), I feel entitled to get some semblance of what I like.
I asked Phil Collins for some extra warm milk. She knows I’m not one for the strong coffee, but she’s waiting tables this morning and it’s the Late Owner’s son making the coffees. I don’t think he’s aware of customer’s personal tastes. These days, my mantra is ‘never leave the café with them thinking you're as weak as the coffee you want’.
Phil Collins arrived with the warm milk and even poured it in from the miniature silver jug, which I’ve long felt would make a good trophy for Star Wars Football. I used to have all the oversized Subbuteo trophies as a kid, which are worth a fortune these days, particularly, for some reason, The League Cup, but I lost them or my dad gave them away, a long time ago. If I’d been a dad, I’d have made sure my kids were never pushed into giving away any toys/games they might later regret, and which, perhaps more importantly, might’ve been worth a fair bit three decades later. Phil C’s pouring was impressive. When I’ve done this, on the odd occasion when I’ve had to request more milk, the milk goes everywhere. The small jug isn’t the easiest to pour from.
In other café news, a man, roughly my age, had gone to the gents just before me. He was in and out quickly and as I went in after him, the flushing audio was ricocheting off the walls of the tomb-like, windowless cubicle. If you have the option of a urinal, as provided by the curious urinal-next-to-bowl layout of the café cubicles, why would you choose to urinate in the bowl? Being a low-key guy, if I’m presented with the choice of a urinal and a bowl, I’ll take the urinal all day long. I don’t need to be exiting with the loo flushing audio still playing out as I re-enter the café. I thought it was a curious choice on the man’s part and it would’ve left some questioning, assuming if, like me, they might pay attention to other’s loo exits, there’d been the need to use the bowl.
I’m not sure I can keep the heating off in Planet Hoth much longer, at least not before the morning shower. My mood this morning wasn’t the best. I hate rain on a Monday. I hate rain full stop, but I know that’s a hangover from a life spent almost entirely living on top floors with leaking roofs. As a kid, well, into adulthood, I spent 24 years living on a top floor, something I’ve stuck to except for a handful of years. Those years living below people taught me that too many people simply aren’t equipped to live in flats.
As London’s housing shortage has turned into a nightmare, many have found themselves downsizing their accommodation and moving from houses into flats. It’s a completely different way of living and I can always tell the heavy-footed door-slammers grew up in a house where you don’t really need to worry about these things. Even the loud mouthwash bathroom garglers, I’d bet those grew up in houses.
But the trade-off, for me, is that in making sure I don’t have some moron living above me, all-too often I’ve had to deal with leaking roofs. In the mid-90s, I became obsessed with weather reports. Back in the days of being holed up in my original café, just off Platform 9 at Victoria Station (1995-2001), my mood would be determined by the weather report in that day’s Evening Standard. If it showed rain for that day, night especially, I would be crestfallen. I’ve never quite overcome that dread of rain. Even in this current flat, I battled for 8 years until just this summer, for building management to finally fix the roof. It took three attempts, that’s three lots of scaffolding going up on the building, before they finally replaced the old tiles. In that time, I had to move out of my study and write in the front room, something which I think affected my work for some time and left me relying more on the café to get into the right mindset to write.
Tonight, after Friday night’s disappointing debacle, I have two gigs in Shoreditch and Clerkenwell. I’m going to keep these simple. The efforts of writing and learning new material last week to build my first twenty, during a week where I had several big issues to tackle with the flat, only for the night to fall so flat, took a fair bit out of me.
I spent the weekend catching up on rest, listening to podcasts and reading. There was also last night’s Star Wars Football League match involving Tattooine running out comfortable 3-0 winners at neighbours Rebels. The latter, four times-champions, have shown some progress this season, but remain a mid-table side and it’s hard to see them challenging for a fifth league title in the next couple of seasons.
Yesterday I turned off the phone for around ten hours, and I have to say, I really benefited from that. I’d love to be able to do that every day, but I’m not sure I can actually, not on weekdays anyway. But the serenity I felt got knowing there’d be no notifications coming through helped me recover a bit from a bruising week. The phone is so knackered now though that when I reboot it, it takes several reboots to pick up the flat’s wi-fi.
The plan this afternoon is to just run through tonight’s spots in the flat, time them again as I tweak one or two lines, and then head out for another 5k. I’ve continued doing the various exercises recommended by my physio. It seems as you get older, these tend to play a bigger part in your life. They’re straightforward, they’re effective, but man, they do require time that in these tail-chasing days is never easy to find.
My second latte has finally arrived.
Colouring-wise, it would’ve got the milkphobes’ hackles up had I posted it.
Normal service resumed.
Twitter: @1607WestEgg
FB: @DRTcomedy
Instagram: @1607westegg
TikTok: @1607WestEgg