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taramiaread-blog · 9 years ago

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Our Favourite Café

For two years, my boyfriend and I have been buying coffee (every Friday) from our favourite café. Two cappuccinos, one with two sugars and one with none. It was recommended to me from a university friend who, much like myself, travels around our city and the rest of the world in search of the perfect cup of coffee.

A cup of coffee is so much more than just some ground up Arabica beans mixed in with some boiling water and milk (and sugar if it pleases). The way I see it, a cup of coffee or tea is only perfect when it comes from a homely café where you know the baristas and waiters. It is made great by the staff allowing you to sit on their gloriously comfy couches all day where you study for exams, catch up with an old friend or just to enjoy your day.

I love ending my working week at our favourite café. It’s summer right now (ooh a hint towards my location!), so I’ll describe the café from that perspective. We park my boyfriend’s bmw e30 that he has put his very heart and soul into building; in Suffolk Street, where there’s free parking for university students. From there we take a leisurely stroll towards our café where the hustle and bustle increases. Our walk is filled with grand and intelligent conversation about our week, our stories and what we’ve learnt. We talk about everything and anything, in doing so we learn from each other.

The sky was an awesome blue. The wind carried my lilac hair as far as my scalp would allow. His tan skin coolly bumps against mine as we walk. We see the giant Ferris wheel glitter in the sunlight, families and individuals flood the streets. We hear the sound of clinking pint glasses from the old, heritage pub that was built in the late 1900s. We see the beautifully tall pine trees that decorate the massive park, green grass creates a comfortable spot to lie down and watch the clouds go by.

As we turn up Henry Street, we hear the old jazz band with the 1940s swing, brass sound lightly brush past our ears. Everyone knows that the alluring music is coming from our favourite café. Our favourite café is not only our favourite but also everyone else’s in town, our favourite café has their own street sign. We can smell the sea salt from the port two kilometres away and we can hear the crashing of waves on the shore above the music, people and their cars.

Halfway up the street we see the banners and the interesting characters with their dogs and prams outside. Perhaps the most interesting part, and my favourite part, isn’t the building itself but the people inside. The café is two storeys tall and is home to some residential artists upstairs that display their art downstairs, in the café.

As we step inside, we’re greeted by the jazz band smiling at us. Behind the band there’s a cosy, little nook with a velvet couch, glowing lamp and a bullet cartridge container used as a coffee table that is all hidden under the staircase.

To our left, the café opens up to a big dining room filled with white washed, wooden chairs and mahogany tables. Two steps forward and the kitchen appears, where there lies a queue of people; thirsty for a cup of delicious, homely coffee.

“Hey guys!” Chelsea calls to us. She’s one of the waitresses at the café. Her extroverted, bubbly and energetic personality has allowed my boyfriend and I to create a casual friendship with her and everyone else who works here. Chelsea stands at 5′ 10″ with bronze skin, bright green eyes and honey brown hair that brushes against her waist. Today she wore a rainbow crop top underneath blue overalls, topped off with black farmer’s boots and complete with a lovely British accent that makes her every word sound sophisticated and intelligent.

As we wait in line, we observe the latest art gallery/children’s pirate and adventure themed playground. The other customers are an array of characters from distinct societal groups. There’s the 5am surfers and cyclists that relax in the late morning at our favourite café. Next you have the 7am Mums and Bubs walking groups whose final stop is breakfast at our favourite café before carrying on home for baby’s midday nap. Then there’s the relaxed university students, enjoying their summer before hell ensues in autumn; this particular breed typically arrive with wet hair, sandy feet, sunburnt skin and loose clothing to serve the only purpose of concealing their bathers clad bodies because it’s still regarded as inappropriate to go to brunch in bathers only.

Second last there’s the casual brunch crawlers that are prepared to spend a sizeable amount of money in discovering the latest café and posting the hidden treasures on Instagram in a bid to appear sophisticated instead of discovering personal growth and fulfilment. We cannot forget the hippies that lazily walk in at around noon and gossip about the latest philosophies and events. Finally, you have the furniture customers who mainly consist of my boyfriend and myself. We have taken the time to flourish our friendship with the people who work here and we give our thanks for their service with an attitude of gratitude because we all understand that serving people can be hell. In return of our weekly tradition, we received two large cappuccinos when we ordered regulars.

Chelsea takes our orders when we finally reach the till. She asks about our weeks and we compliment each other in the 60 seconds that we have of conversation. As my boyfriend lounges on the red, velvet couch just before the doorway opens into the courtyard; I take a step back and see who is our barista for today. Rose appears to be making the coffees for this morning. Rose is a 5′4″, blonde haired, blue eyed woman and she is a local university student. She makes great, homely cups of coffee. I observe the way she makes the coffee for a moment, how concentrated she looks and she moves as if she’s creating art that fills the walls of our favourite café.

After five minutes of casual conversation, Chelsea brings over our cappuccinos and ham and cheese croissants. We spend fifteen minutes devouring our delicious breakfast and savouring every sip of that hug in a mug.

We sit back and people watch as we’ve satisfied our stomachs and our tastebuds. The café is a microcosm of hustle and bustle movement that represents our town and is contained within our café.

When the sun reaches it’s highest point in the sky for the day, my boyfriend and I ever so coolly stroll out of the café, calling our thanks over our shoulders and continue on with our day.

#coffee #shortstory #creative writing #writing #summer

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taramiaread-blog · 9 years ago

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A Little Bit About Me - My Job At The Jewellry Store

So right now it's 15 minutes until my shift starts, more likely 10 because I always get to work 5 minutes early. Anyway. I work in a jewellery store, it's a good job. The girls I work with are decent and nice. The customers can be a pain but we laugh about that later. Seriously though, if you ever try to aggressively demand to get your way in retail; it's not going to happen because whatever you're demanding is excluded from our store policy. So rather than making a fool of yourself, with red vein popping, purple face and all: why not accept that no means no and take your screaming baby home? Rant over. Okay so I was really inspired when I had the aforementioned dream and I'm turning it into a story. So i figured in the meantime I'd just write random blog posts to increase my creativity. I was really inspired by Mara Wilson's blog: marawilsonwritesstuff.com, go check her out; it's hilarious. Just to give you an idea of who the hell I am, I'll just give you the main points and we can move on. - My name: you don't need to know that 😉 - My location in the world: a salty, sleepy, surf town in the middle of the ass crack of nowhere. I'll write about this later. - My job: Jewellry store employee/babysitter. - 3 most interesting things about me: 1. I go on ridiculous adventures that are all completely true and if I were to tell you, you wouldn't believe me. 2. If you dare me, I'll do just about anything. 3. I've met some incredible people along the way who have shaped who I am. So now I'm on my 45 minute lunch break, not bad for a 9 hour shift. I wolfed down my $6 sushi rolls in 5 minutes, I probably could've bought a bigger meal for cheaper but the sushi place was right outside the store. Currently I'm watching The Coffee Club Guy hug everyone at Coffee Club and is overly smiley and chatty. The only significance to this guy is that he flirted with me for a while because I'm a regular there and they all know me. But he came into my store, blushed and ran out like a toddler. After that, he never made eye contact with me again. I don't care because I'm in love with my boyfriend. My job pays my rent, wifi bill, food, fuel for my car and is enough for me to save up to go to Cambodia later this year. It's a good job but the hours are long and each shift is filled with ridiculously high, supernatural expectations of what one person should accomplish in one shift. Well I hope this has amused you. Stick around for more :) Ps. I never promised I'd be funny 😉 Okay if I'm not funny then at least nervously laugh along!

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