Beat Me While I’m Still Down, Not Right When I’ve Managed to Get Up, OK?

Oh boy was I wrong last night. This morning I went to the wonderful café with free wireless only to find a notice on the door saying “Closed until further notice”.
I was there at 8am, right when I was supposed to start working. I then proceeded to trek over to the centre, trying to frantically locate another café with wireless. I managed to find a Café Nero eventually (great day for wearing not-so-comfortable-to-walk-in heels, it was supposed to be a 2min walk after all), and forked over £5 for 24-hr internet access. Well, it turns out they had no sockets for me to charge my laptop, and as I’d drained half of the battery last night expecting to plug it right in this morning at the previously mentioned wonderful café, I was in for another trek to yet another Nero (as my £5 investment is only good at Café Neros). I did find one, and was able to convince some people to move from the only table close enough for my battery cable’s reach.

Somebody threw MrPicky’s borrowed bike into the trash, and now that’s gone. Will be fun explaining that to the wonderful Samaritan who lent it to us out of the goodness of their heart. We still haven’t got our electricity bill (proof of address for our bank account), and it was supposed to arrive by yesterday. There’s no knowing when we’ll get internet either. The sporadic internet we get at the flat? That’s somebody else’s unprotected network, which they (understandably) switch off when they’re offline. Unfortunately for us (in this emergency state, you see) they do not seem to be internet addicts. They clearly aren’t WTers either.

But at least the sun is shining beautifully, and the birds are singing. Well, now that the throng of 20+ loud (words fail, and so does the decibel scale) teenagers have gone back to school or wherever they escaped from, I can imagine the birds singing outside.

Although I must say I’m now kind of nervous about what will happen next. Three Café Neros are not going to simultaneously close “until further notice”, are they? Are they?

It is worth mentioning that we must really love this place. Even though we’re getting shit shovelled on us at record-breaking speed, we still love it here. And that’s quite the achievement, all things considered.