Cafe Society

What is …............

Does it exist? Or is it wishful thinking on the part of ordinary ever day workable folk who wish it did.

It isn't in expensive 5 star London hotels that charge £54 for afternoon tea in a palm infested restaurant. The only thing there is pretentious people with as much depth to them as the surface on their earl grey.

Actually it does exist – only in a different way to how the parvenu of London would have us believe. It is living life in the most relaxed of lifestyles.

My home town of London - true Londoners call the place a town – others a city, has embraced the idea of the cafe society. Trouble is we don't really have the weather for the true cafe society way of life.

Paris the epitome of the cafe society, is not that dry when in comes to rain, on average Paris has 171 days of rainfall a year, whereas London has less with 156.2 – so how come everyone thinks of Paris as the capital of cafe society?

Cultural ideals of relaxation.

We Brits are simply not as relaxed as the French.

But - if you really want to see cafe society at it's most relaxed – then head for the Med.

Unfortunately, as a tourist on holiday you will only ever get a short-term glimpse of what it means to sit in a cafe, and do absolutely nothing, without the slightest hint of guilt, knowing that you can do nothing again the next day, the next week, and the next year.

Mediterranean cafe society is not about having the time because you are retired. In the summer, it's about the heat. Everyone comes alive after 10pm – when the day finally gets a bit cooler. It's then that ordinary working folk, head for their favourite bar.

Mine was Don Pepe's. It was not on the grand scale of a 5 star hotel. It was a bit of a dump really. The waiting staff cleaned the tables with a cloth that attracted more flies than it got rid of. Dogs were welcomed, and the owner's wife made sure the street cats never went hungry.

What made Don Pepe's so special for me, was the people who sat at the tables and gossiped, about anything and everything.

There was - the long suffering, Louis with his bad tempered wife. She hated the outsiders, including me, because I could understand the nasty things she said about the 'extranjeros', foreigners. Mostly I think she hated her husband, because he liked everyone.

Don Pepe's son Manuel, who saw himself as a serial romantic. And Manuel's wife, Trinni the bar's cook, who saw her husband as a serial womaniser.

The Dutchman Jan, and his English wife. They hated each other, but couldn't bare to be apart.

And others.

The evenings were spent discussing the state of Spain's economic crisis. Why Spanish football teams were the best in the world. This belief was often the subject of heated argument from the other nationalities who frequented the bar. Particularly the Germans – who to be fair, are very good at winning the world cup, something they regularly reminded the other debaters.

The inhabitants of our small corner of Andalusia didn't like the summer visitors from Madrid any more than they did from anywhere else. The intruders took the best tables, demanded constant attention, and chose to ignore the unsophisticated locals.

War was never openly declared with the visitors, but battle lines were drawn to get the shady tables underneath the pine trees. Whoever from our little group of regulars got to the bar first, they would pull the best tables together until we all turned up, then split them apart in an effort to appease our host.

I don't think he really minded, after all, when the visitors went home at the end of summer, we were still there.

And with summer thankfully over, and it was winter once more, these discussions carried on under the outside awning or in the bar itself.

Cafe society, isn't about how much you pay to sit at a swank table, eating outrageously over priced cake, thinking you are part of something you are not.

Cafe society is about a sweet old man, running a tatty little bar, being generous with his tapas, and a bunch of happy-go-lucky misfits, finding friendship.

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