Kitchen Garden Forum

Is it me?
In our relatively small town centre Jessops closed and became a coffee shop, Millets did the same and a wonderful little garden shop that had been open for over a century. That's three within a 30 second walk of each other. I went to the bank last week at 9.15am and all three coffee shops were full.

Who are all these people who have time to visit a coffee shop and sit chatting at 9.15 on a week day morning? Do they not possess their own kettles? Have anything else to do? How do I get this lifestyle?

Answers please on a postcard to Confused and Bewildered Isle of Wight.....

Dear Confused and Bewildered of Isle of Wigit

Do not get confused or bewildered, you are not alone.
These people who have the time AND the money to frequent coffee shops are as confused as you, if not more so.

Why are they, because trying to decide which of the multitude of phone shops they should visit has worn them down to a frazzle and they have to relax over a coffee.
The snag with this is that they feel compelled to drink coffee and send texts at the same time.

Using a small keypad so often has lead them to eye strain so they are then confused and bewildered as to which opticians they should go and visit, this calls for another cup of coffee whilst they make the decision.

All this of course in the name of 'Fairtrade'

+++++++++++++
BTW, Jessops are re-opening in a number of towns, not sure if they have taken leases on coffee shop premises though.

Perhaps they are putting off going to work. I don't mind using them if I go into town if they serve drinks in nice thin, normal sized cups, but I hate drinking out of those thick chamber pot sized cups or cardboard beakers.

In my own town some of my friends use the local coffee shop but I can't see the point in paying a few pounds when it's only a ten minute walk from home. It's more relaxing too to sit and chat in your own easy chairs. Not thought about the being in constant Internet contact factor Pasnip

I was even more amazed when I was treated to an offering from the well known charity coffee shop (I assume that's what it is as it pays no tax) and was given this strange grey brew that I decided was the waste from the dishwasher, I can't believe how they can charge so much for such stuff. When we go out for the day we take a flask and when I am dragged off to the shops I make sure we are not out long enough to need a coffee. Got to save up for my £1,400 Christmas food bill somehow!

You lot never fail to make me smile.

Some of those people may actually be at work. Gathering in the coffee shop is cheaper than a meeting room. Last time I was in a coffee shop during the day, I felt like the odd one out, not having a laptop out.

It seems to me that the days when people got dirty and sweated at work are gone how this country of ours survives with the number of people producing nothing in the working day is unbelievable we seem to have become a country of keyboard queens

It's very comforting to know I'm not alone in the world of confusion and bewilderment... and I was of course forgetting about the pressure from mobile phone shops and opticians who take all your money so that you have to visit the charity shops to dress yourself and the pound shop for whatever food is available. And I was forgetting about Big Mac and the American chicken man for lunch

I too saw that programme where the family spent £1400 on Christmas food, do people not eat in the normal course of events? That sum will do the three of us for several months and one of us is a teenage boy!

Never tasted the stuff. Smell alone puts me off.

There are probably a few others on this forum who did the same as me as a teenager in the late fifties early sixties who used to visit the local "coffee shop" (caff)! to drink frothy coffee from a light green,thick-walled cup,feed sixpences into the jukebox whilst chatting up the opposite sex!Happy innocent days with no peer pressure;and coffee that tasted like coffee and not the tasteless rubbish served up these days as I found out on my one and only visit to one of these modern establishments.It was so bad that I asked for my money back.
I took the same view as Geoff tasted like the waste from the dishwasher and about as warm and an insult to all the "proper"coffees out there.

Pubs keep installing these fancy coffee machines (never touch it myself being a tea person)and they really should issue ear defenders for the noise they make and put on extra bar staff as they take so long to produce a scrappy little cup of coffee.

Perhaps some entrepreneur had a bet on that he could sell dishwater at inflated prices

MW - being one of those people who is often in the coffee shop at 9:15 am, I can tell you its really weird being there at that time everyone has different reason for being there, for me its survival. Ive often been out the house with my little girl since 6 am, so stopping for a coffee is the only way i can copr

Ah, got one that doesn't sleep Dan?

Motherwoman wrote:Ah, got one that doesn't sleep Dan?

Already getting too much caffeine perhaps

Motherwoman wrote:Ah, got one that doesn't sleep Dan?

Oh no, she sleeps, from about 4pm till about 4 am... So really out of wack

Pa Snip wrote:Already getting too much caffeine perhaps

Actually we've had to stop drinking caffeine fizz (cola) because she wants to drink it, so now we have squash in sparkling water...