Recovering now from our resurgence of COVID, but still prone to occasional fits of coughing, we have resumed our café lifestyle.
What is this café lifestyle, you may ask?
It’s not complicated.
In the morning, we go out for a coffee. This has ambiance and lingering, without either being absolutely necessary, and in the afternoon, we go out again for a drink or snack or coffee or whatever, where the lingering and ambiance take on more importance. Here we spend time on individual endeavors and contemplation. I, for instance, am writing this that you are reading now.
Our morning choice for café today was a bit of a random discovery, being something of a joke recommendation as we walked on from a morning errand, as what appeared to be a cute antique store turned out to be an old-world tea house as well.
For the afternoon, we have returned to a large courtyard patio café fronting on the slightly grand Boulevard Victor Hugo, one of the great hotel streets of the city, sitting between where we live and the sea. There is steady human traffic passing by before us, and unfortunately two-lane car traffic on the street as well, perhaps at its rush-hour peak.
I have a short blue pen and one precious last sip of champagne in my glass. I would put this slightly more formal café as on the pricier side, but ten euros for a glass of champagne is never a bad bargain, and I’ve indulged a little as a celebration of my return to the world. I had only stopped at one glass out of a prudence for my health, which still has a way to go to be fully restored.
Between us and the sidewalk is a small, very perfect olive tree in a raised planter’s row just starting to grow fruits, and a short, pointed iron fence. On the sidewalk walks by an immaculately coiffed black French poodle just to reassure me as to the country I am in.
For all the hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands, of cafés in this city, it can be curiously difficult to find ones with their own relaxed, garden-like space that is not overwhelmed with people. That this has comfortable chairs, is unusually close to our home, and provides ten-euro champagne is a real boon to our new way of life.
And that’s not the champagne in me talking.
Indeed, I need at least two glasses of champagne for it to begin talking in me.
Also, it sounds better than this.
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