Coffee at "George's" - if he has another name we don' know it. He has a café with mostly outside tables under a smoked glass roof. Ninety-nine percent of his customers, he says, sitting down for a moment at the table, are regulars. Inside there are classic movie posters. Gone with the Wind and Breakfast at Tiffanyès by the door, and so many inside that they're stacked several deep in the landing outside the loos.
We're here to meet Margaaret, a feisty woman in her eighties - I had my driver's licence stamped when I was eighty and I don't need it done again until I'm 83. The driver's licence is a bit of a problem as she's blind in one eye but lives a little outside the city. So she's come to an arraangement with the licensing inspector - she compliments him, she says, and he grants her a licence to drive in the daytime without passengers.
Margaret seems to have some regular coffee friends, which is reassuring as she's been rather lonely since her husband died. So we're introduced to Leslie, who works part time at the Body Shop and is afraid it will close; Petros, who used to live near Little Venice, the canal behind Paddington Station in London; and Maroula, a former chef, who is laden with shopping and off to make her grandson's lunch. Once more, coffee is a bit of a euphemism, though it is what the others are having, and in some cases toast as well. But it's been a mile's walk in the sun, so we split a large beer.
We're here to meet Margaaret, a feisty woman in her eighties - I had my driver's licence stamped when I was eighty and I don't need it done again until I'm 83. The driver's licence is a bit of a problem as she's blind in one eye but lives a little outside the city. So she's come to an arraangement with the licensing inspector - she compliments him, she says, and he grants her a licence to drive in the daytime without passengers.
Margaret seems to have some regular coffee friends, which is reassuring as she's been rather lonely since her husband died. So we're introduced to Leslie, who works part time at the Body Shop and is afraid it will close; Petros, who used to live near Little Venice, the canal behind Paddington Station in London; and Maroula, a former chef, who is laden with shopping and off to make her grandson's lunch. Once more, coffee is a bit of a euphemism, though it is what the others are having, and in some cases toast as well. But it's been a mile's walk in the sun, so we split a large beer.