I had an urge to go into the posh coffee shop after the morning job today. It's not a place I usually frequent because it reminds me of people long gone and happy times lost.
I got lucky and managed to claim Pole Position - the table in the window upstairs that BK, Flatmate and I used to think of as ours. The last time BK visited the UK we sat here, with his new kiwi missus he brought over to introduce to everyone before they settled down to have kids back in New Zealand.
It's a bittersweet place for me. I still see Flatmate's ghost in there every time I walk past, hunched over his chessboard at his favourite table near the counter downstairs.
But today I wanted to go in because of the last dreary couple of years we've had. If we have to have another lockdown it'll be things like this I'll wish I'd done more of when I could - grabbing the moment, taking a seat in a comfy leather armchair, watching the world go by with a fancy coffee and my feet up on the windowsill. The simple, tiny things.
Tonight at work my colleague invited me to join her in cutting out Christmas decorations from a pad of patterned paper she'd brought in specially. "Angels, paperchains, whatever you like," she said. "The shape's printed on the back, you just cut round."
Ugh. I don't like patterns and I especially don't like conformity. While she got busy cutting out snowflakes:
I went for something more my style:
Photo de Jour: Advice