Ins And Outs

Hello, dear readers!

A couple of days ago, on a sunshine and showers dotted Monday afternoon, I had a coffee.

Not exactly earth-shaking, is it? Especially when you consider my normal, highly caffeinated state. In fact, hardly a single day goes past that doesn’t start with a bucket (or cafetiere if you want to be posh) of high octane bean juice. This particular cup of Joe was special, though. A highly prized and long awaited treat.

This coffee, you see, was drunk in a coffee shop.

The Thick Of It
Again, this would not normally be anything worth noting, but over the last fourteen months or so, the opportunities to visit such a facility have been as rare as the droppings of the lesser-spotted rocking horse.

There may have been an opportunity at some point in the last year or so, but as the government ‘guidance’ over that period has changed every other Tuesday, and as I’m still not sure how many people from how many households were allowed in, out, or shaking it about at any identifiable point it’s difficult to tell.

 
Not that the rules were all that important to me. As an officially ‘vulnerable’ person, I existed on a self-imposed lockdown for the majority of 2020, and a fair bit of 2021, too. It seemed the smartest choice, especially when anti-maskers, anti-vaxers, and pandemic deniers were so thick on social media (in the numerical sense. I’m not commenting on anyone’s intelligence or lack of, here) that a horde of virus-carrying free-thinkers might lurk around any given corner.

No Sale
That was then, though, and this is now. In the first few months of this year, I have been offered and accepted both courses of the Pfizer vaccination. Is there an outside chance I’ve been chipped and shadowy forces are monitoring my every move as we speak? Well, I suppose. I wouldn’t put any money on it though. I’m already a good little consumer, feeding the machine of free-market capitalism, and if anyone was unfortunate to draw my name out of the hat for monitoring duty, they were probably sacked for nodding off on the job. I’m just not that interesting.

Other wild and wacky theories I’ve heard are that the vaccine re-writes your DNA (even though it works on an RNA level, and then only with messenger RNA). I’ve even heard it can stop hair dye working on you, which I’m more than willing to test (red or blue, do we think? Separate colour for the beard?) and of course the vaccine makes you both able to receive Bluetooth signals and slightly magnetic (pretty easy to check, I'd have thought). You probably guessed I’m not buying any of it.

But let's get back to the point in hand. The last few weeks, fully vaccinated and with a plethora of non-essential shops and cafes back open, have presented both myself, and my rather fabby wife, Tina, with a long absent opportunity to linger over a hot drink in a homogeneously comfy setting and get over-charged for something I can produce better at home. It was still an opportunity we grabbed.

Bitter Sweet
Why? Well, for one it provided us a much missed slice of something scarily like normality. Yes, the major high street caffeine provider was less than busy. Yes, the tables were that little better spread out. And of course masks and disinfectant spray bottles were much in evidence. The seats were still padded though, the colour scheme suitably on-brand, and the music piped in alongside the rich aromas as middle-of-the-road as any roundabout you care to mention. The Americano was just-about-acceptable as always (I can’t speak to Tina’s half-strength salted caramel Latte, but I’m sure it was as much of an over-sweet, caffeine free abomination as it always is). It was familiar. It was normal. And it provided us with a taster of what might be. What once was. A return to the humdrum little luxuries we’re all so sorely missing.

Sadly, this small extravagance was short-lived. Not twenty-four hours had passed before I found out Kirklees (the district I live in) was once more under lockdown rules, thanks to a prevalence of the so-called ‘Indian variant. No mixing. No shopping. No coffee shops. It means that coffee is likely to be the last one outside of these four walls, at least for a little while.

Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

Until next time…