BACK AT JACK'S BISTRO

We had a couple of errands to do in Old Town this morning, the first being to pick up Mr. HCB’s TV adapter from Leightons, that hasn’t been working properly.  When it’s working well, this adapter means that he can listen to football or anything else on the television and the sound goes straight to his ears, instead of boring me! I really do hope that this one works - time will tell.  

Having had a new bathroom carpet fitted yesterday afternoon, we decided to go in and pay today as the shop is also in Old Town.  We ordered it from Gilberts, a small local business, at the end of February, and as they have been closed during the lockdown, felt that we shouldn’t wait for an invoice, but just call in to pay the bill.  I had said to Mr. HCB that it would be good to have a new bedroom carpet, so while we were up there, we ordered one - well, if we aren’t going away, we might as well be comfortable in our own home and our old one has seen better days.

We then thought that it would be good to pop into Jack’s, and having been encouraged by Sharon, a lovely friend, whom we met on our way and who said that everything had been done well in there to protect customers, we “bit the bullet” and had our first outing to our favourite coffee shop.  

We were met at the door by a smiling Keiran, who said it was good to see us and we said likewise explaining that this was the first time we had been out to a coffee shop since the beginning of March.  He explained about the hand sanitiser and showed us to a table that was physically distanced from the others around and then came back to take our order.  He asked if we wanted something to eat, and explained that under the “Eat Out to Help Out” Government scheme, whatever we had was 50% off, so it seemed rude not to take advantage of the offer.  

We both ordered Eggs Benedict and agreed it was delicious, as was the coffee, but decided it would do as our brunch, since it was now 10.30.  Our cutlery even came in a see-through envelope, and Keiran was keeping a watchful eye on everyone who came in to ensure that they complied with the rules about sanitising their hands and practising physical distancing.  

It was good to be back and I’m sure we will do it again.  Apparently, since the Government scheme started they have been “full to bursting” on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but apparently, it’s very quiet on a Thursday and Friday, so perhaps we will go up there on one of those days next week.  It certainly felt good to be able to go out, but I can’t say the same about wearing a mask - I’m not sure I will ever get used to wearing one and along with millions of other people who wear glasses, we both had steamed-up glasses after about a minute - funny I can remember when that used to happen in our courting days and we never grumbled then - how times change!  ;-)  

So far we have had an enjoyable day, as you can see by the collage and perhaps next time we will have a glass of bubbly to celebrate.  I told Keiran I was still doing my daily Blip, so he was happy to let me take his photograph and now Mr. HCB’s TV adapter appears to be working well, which is good, because it’s just started raining heavily, so he won’t be able to do any work in the garden.

“We’re so busy watching out 
     for what’s just ahead of us 
          that we don’t take time 
               to enjoy where we are.” 
Bill Watterson