Cafe culture. Fashion oddities.

In our village there is a cafe and gift shop. In fact, it’s also a craft cooperative, selling handmade cards, artisan jewellery, wooden toys, knitted items and the like. I once thought of joining in but it means committing yourself to providing stuff on a fairly regular basis and at the time we were still travelling back and forth between here and Galicia, frequently but irregularly. Maybe I should look into it again. There’s also a picture framing business there in the basement, connected to a group of artists who meet and paint there. At any rate, they used to do so. It’s possible the virus put paid to that!

It used to be called Edna’s cafe. I would chat to the eponymous Edna and to her husband, who had been some kind of adventurer, international salesman, and was acquainted with Vigo and other places in Galicia. Small world syndrome struck again! 

When we last returned from Galicia, just as the whole coronavirus nightmare was getting under way, I discovered that cafe was closed. “For bereavement”, the notice said. Nobody I spoke to knew whether it was Edna, who always looked frail and rather unhealthy, or her husband, one of those florid types who could well be a stroke victim. So whole thing remains a mystery for me. 

The cafe and craft shop remained closed for some time and then, towards the end of last year it reopened as Crumbles Cafe. For a while they served take-away coffees and sandwiches but now that it is permitted once more I often see groups of people sitting outside with coffee and cake. And in recent weeks they have adapted the area just behind the cafe, where Edna’s husband used to park his car, into a bicycle hub, complete with places to lock up your bike! Small business enterprise seems to be doing well here.

I cycled to Uppermill again this morning. I was in Uppermill centre by 9.15. Maybe cleaning my bike after the last time I used it - a very necessary task after all the winter occasions when it got thoroughly mud-splattered - made it a lighter and faster ride. Consequently I got round everywhere before queues built up and was on my way home again not long after 10.00. It was a fine morning for riding along the Donkey Line. 

On my return I had a natter with one of the neighbours, a lady of about my age. She was hanging her washing out, including a couple of pairs of shorts. Apparently one of her grandchildren, an 18 year old, had commented in surprise one sunny day recently, “Grandma! You’re wearing shorts!” Just as if she might not be aware of what clothing she had put on that morning! So she told her granddaughter that she had always been reluctant to wear shorts, considering her legs to be too chunky, but having reached the age of 70+ she no longer cared and just wanted to be comfortable on a hot day. Besides, she added, the granddaughter has almost certainly inherited her chunky legs!

Now, according to something I read on one of the fashion pages the thing to do now is to wear comfortable clothing like sweatpants and leggings with deliberate holes in them to reveal bits of your anatomy.

“Grin and bare it: the rise of the intentional wardrobe malfunction”, reads the headline. 

“After dressing for comfort during the pandemic, why are we seeing more flesh-revealing clothes?”

Psychologists and behavioural scientists put it down to our all having been sexually repressed by and during lockdown, and now we are making up for it. As well as clothes with body-revealing holes, underwear featuring as outerwear is also a trendy thing at the moment.

“We’ve spent the last 18 months focusing on safety, health and wellbeing. However, this appears to be a watershed moment in which all that pent-up sexual tension is about to explode,” says Prof Andrew Groves. “These displays of flesh around the groin, buttocks or breasts are indicative of that.”

Personally, apart from wearing shorts like my neighbour, I’m not running around revealing buts of my body to all and sundry.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!C