Walking the warm sunny streets as I did many years ago now, books and time in hand. That was a great, if lonely, period of my life. As fate would have it they’ve returned. 

  In the interim there was marriage, a son, the buying of a house and everything we moderns fill it with. A state of affairs that never really sat well with me. 

  Wifey was a wonderful woman, but our life together became increasingly entangled in the busyness of the age, a busyness I am constitutionally unsuited for. Our circle of friends grew with Sonny-Boy’s years. They were wonderful folk, but middle class to the core and the truth is I never fit in, never wanted to fit in. 

  A break was inevitable really. As a youth I had spent ten painful years extricating myself from middle class expectations and responsibilities. Marriage dragged me back in despite occasional protestations. 

  For years the Cafe has been my oasis in the desert of conventionality. However, why live in the desert when you can live in the oasis I figure?

  Why settle? 

  The beer in front of me is nearly done and beside the iPad I write these words on is a hardcover copy of Lawrence Durrell & Henry Miller, A Private Correspondence. 

  Life is returning to the rich and fruitful simplicity I once knew.