“Live the dream, drink fresh milk!”

“When you cast your rod into the lake of compliments, save some bait for the trout of sympathy.” 

“Who is the fool – the man who wears odd socks or the man who spends twenty minutes searching for two that match?”

 

“To be in love is to be a kitten below a suspended anvil.”

GFD: The Yummy Shop, Shaldon.

The Yummy Shop opened last summer, I was told by the woman who gave me the tea. It was her friends who opened it, and they offered her a job. I think it was Machiavelli who said ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.’ Or was it the Government’s front bench…? First political jab of the day!

I sit here on one of two tables, in the corner of the room. To the right: my host, cleaning and telling me about old times. ‘Yes, we were overrun with kids in wetsuits, ice creams all over the place, high demand for the hampers…’ To the left, cream coloured aged furniture, shelves, drawers and dressers to hold olives teas, Teapigs, jams, chutneys, soups. Elsewhere we have the biscuits, crisps, eggs, more tea, more jam, more olives and ginger beer. I wont list it all, too much. For the Yummy Shop is schizophrenic: part café part shop.

My tea was £1. Coffee is also £1. But this is no pound shop, oh no. If you want to up the game a bit be prepared to splash out another 50p, for this is the price of the espresso, latte, cappuccino… Also on offer is hot chocolate, also £1, and milkshakes and ice cream.

Seems to be a good system, because the money you save on the drink leaves you thinking: perhaps I should invest in some unusual tea – get some Darjeeling Earl Grey or a few lemon n gingers. The Yummy Shop’s yummy offerings are at the good-quality end of the spectrum. No 60% horse tea here.

I get a £1.50 cappuccino for a second drink. The automatic coffee machine is new and has a bit of a temper. It makes a cappuccino in one swift motion at the touch of a button, in a matter of seconds. I’m personally keener on the non-automatic approach: the human input usually triumphs over the efficiency of the machine. Funny, they complain about foreigners ‘takin’ our jobs’ but stay quiet when machines do the same thing.

I sit here with my tea writing about Romans. Everybody knows about the romans, but did you know minus solum, quam cum solus esset? Indeed, but I am not alone. Only almost alone. We continue chatting until a woman enters and buys two bars of chocolate. Two!? They’re wild here, wild I tell ya!

by Adam

GFD: The Old Java Coffee House, Teignmouth

No sooner had I arrived in Teignmouth than I found myself spinning like a record down the hill in my car. I swung into the curb and the wheel flicked right off. Hence I am stranded in Teignmouth and have resolved to get a job. As the great Schopenhauer may have put it: sometimes you crash.

I am now in this café which apparently opened last Saturday. The paint is still drying, as they say, and the staff still have the twinkle of novelty in their eyes. They chatter to one another and chatter to the coffee hounds of the room, as they clear tables and pour drinks. They like what they do and I like that, and they like that I like that. They also have booze if you fancy getting wrecked. But never drink alone, as they say, except Hemingway, who said: “It was pleasant to be drinking slowly and to be tasting the wine and to be drinking alone. A bottle of wine was good company.” So, do drink alone after all.

They have those chairs which look like they have long cream tongues as back rests. But I am on an armchair, happily enough. Armchairs suit my personality better I think.

I got a loyalty card which must mean than I am optimistic about the place. And I am. They have dark grey shirts in keeping with the pale decor of olive grey, wood and cream. The meds stop me drinking coffee, to avoid barmy insomniac crazed bouts of intense anxiety, but stranded as I am and out of pills, I go for an Americano. It arrives with a mini biscuit. The coffee is rich, not thick. It’s dark and lingers like a friend with nowhere to go.

It’s light and airy with a chandaleir, no less, hanging from the ceiling. Photography dots the walls, local pics of moors and bodies of water. The demographic is wide, ranging from grey haired wise old folk of yore to me, a mere child. That’s good I reckon. Also they have a notice board. A community thing. I’ll stick a Jam card on that noticeboard. I sit here writing the final chapter of a novel and proceed to steal their electricity to fuel my laptop. Oh Adam you swine.

Filter of the day? For that I shall return.

by Adam

“A shoe will always be a shoe, even when it is a hat.”

GDF ’13: Millers Farm Shop, Dorset.

It’s the end of January and the UK is experiencing terrible snowfall that wouldn’t even be considered news in other countries but gets the front page here. But it has been pretty cool, I must admit. Gotta like a bit of snow, aintcha. This week David Cameron has offered the UK a referendum on membership of the EU should he be re-elected next time, and, in even more amazing news, we’ve been making jam.

Chris and I are in Dorset, on a jam-making trip, and currently at Millers Farm Store, in their café. We are told that they are opening a ‘real’ café soon, after a bunch of months, that this ‘isn’t really their café’. But, sssh, we entreat: with its AGA, fireplace, and farmshop sundries spreading off towards the distant corners of the room, this quiant corner café is right on.

Purists might hesitate when faced with the coffee. It’s coffee machine coffee, perhaps losing the important touch of a skillful barista. It is however a well balanced brew and at £1.30 leaves you with enough coins in your pocket so as to not to worry about floating away on a strong breeze.

Mister Miller is the man who opened Millers. And as he tallies up our stock, this beared and friendly chap’s eyes perk up when we tell him of the jam we make, and with the tone of a devilish wizard, he invites us to bring in a sample or two. We accept the challenge. His daughter, Rachael, is equally enthused, and we feel pretty good right now about Jammatology’s start to 2013. I believe it was Voltaire who said: ‘When all is falling apart like brittle glass, make jam. For jam is the adhesive for life’s fractures.’ (He didn’t say that, by the way).

Everyone knows you go a bit crazy if you spend more than a week in Dorset, but I’m a Dorset Lightweight, and so I’m a loon after a day and a half.

By Adam