Scenes from a Sunday Sidewalk

A cuppachino at the sidewalk cafe was my solution to having run out of coffee at home. So much happening in the little pockets of tables around me, it is like a mini soap opera unfolding, hold my hand and journey with me.

A family of 4 with a 3 year old daughter with tiara who is so in love with her Dad. She is chatting and giggling and when she sits on the chair her chin is level with the table. The mom is a beautiful blond with long flowing hair and oversized sunglasses, her baby son is getting fed the froth from her cuppachino and loving it. Dad is explaining with the aid of his fingers that he will be 32 in 2 days time and she repeats "thirty two?" as if he may as well be 100.

At the table next to them is a young lad not much older than 8 with very short hair, chubby red cheeks and huge eyes. He is wearing a blue soccer top and sharing his table with his grandparents and one of their friends. The old folks are muttering about the motorcyclists and how some areas are going to hell because no-one cares anymore. The lads eyes opened so wide that I feared they might pop out of his head when he saw the size of his milkshake and he could hardly sit still when his breakfast arrived.. His Grandad is furiously cleaning the screen of his cellphone the same way a mother attacks her children's faces on a Sunday morning before church.

Table three has 3 male friends in their sixties all very specific about their Earl Grey tea and unbuttered toast and tomato (not cooked please). At their table is a lady in her early forties with long dark hair, lovely figure and smoking a cigarette. She seems unattached and you seem to wonder if she is a daughter or a lover, most intriguing. The gentleman next to her stood up and starting packing his pipe with tobacco as if he were about to tell a tale of the high seas to all. His food arrived and he collapsed deflated as if his moment of greatness had been stolen from him. The dark lady without so much as glancing at him put her had on his arm and he seemed to pull himself together again.

Each table touched me in a different manner and it was good to be out in the sun and share breakfast with complete strangers. Open your eyes and look around you and see what is happening, there might be a whole new world waiting to let you in.

Nite all