New Year's Eve ride

There's no fixed event, we don't have a New Year's Ride on our agenda and never have, but sometimes New Year's Eve falls on a day when we're riding so, by default, that ride becomes a New Year's Eve ride. On this occasion, we weren't really planning to ride on New Year's Eve, Andy had suggested we ride earlier in the week, I think it was Monday he was suggesting, but I said something along the lines of "I was thinking of Wednesday", which just so happened to be New Year's Eve. 

Clear skies...

The temperatures have plummeted of late so Andy suggested meeting at 1030hrs and I agreed, we didn't want to risk icy roads and accidents. I left around 0930, feeling over-confident that I would easily reach Esquire's Coffee within the hour based on my performance on Boxing Day. It was cold, but not as cold as it looked even if the weather app on my phone was saying 'feels like zero degrees' or whatever it said. I pushed up Church Way, the only real hill on the outward ride, and soon found myself on the 269 heading for Botley Hill and beyond. 

Half way down Clarks Lane the road was closed and a detour in place and then there was a short burst along Pilgrim's Lane before rejoining Clarks Lane and heading into Westerham. Andy was already there and it was fairly crowded. I took a seat, ordered a tea and then we found ourselves talking about 'third places', the idea being that we have home and work and then a third place where we chill and read and talk and do whatever. For a lot of people, the pub is their third place, but for me, my third place will always be a coffee shop or caff, Andy's the same. The whole notion of a 'third place' was to do with the development of the coffee retailing chain Starbucks, which started life in Pike Street Market in Seattle (I've been there a couple of times and, as you might expect, it looks different from the Starbucks we all know and love). In fact, I was in Starbucks in Oxted the day before yesterday and that looks like a good 'third place' to me, but having said that so does Caffe Nero just up the road, and Coughlan's across the street. Third places can be anywhere and depend entirely on individual tastes. In other words, the third place, be it a coffee shop, a leisure centre cafeteria or a pub is subjective. I wonder if there are any coffee shops called The Third Place anywhere in the world (I'll check it out on Google).

On Pilgrims Lane just outside of Westerham...

A friend of Andy's from his cycling club arrived and said hello and suddenly the place was packed. Next to us were mums with their kids playing cards, in other parts of the store there were groups of friends and families and Esquires did a good job in catering for them all.

There are many good things about Esquires Coffee in Westerham (remember, this is a franchised concept so each one is liable to be slightly different from the next one and so on). The space is large and airy (more so when it's half empty) and the vibe is good, the place has warmth and, I hasten to add, a plentiful range of cakes, cookies and savoury items and, for Andy, they cater for vegans too. I noticed a few vegan sausage rolls, but also a load of bacon sandwiches, millionaires shortbreads, the usual stuff you expect to find plus sandwiches, everything you might need.

We stayed for a couple of cups of tea and then, realising that I had no urgent need to return home, I stayed on and read Uncommon Danger, the last of the Penguin Modern Classics range of Eric Ambler novels. One chapter in and I already know that it's going to be good. I've just finished reading The Absence by Peter Clark aka Budgie, the drummer from the Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Creatures. I thought I was going to struggle with it at first until I got around a third of the way through and then I found it enlightening; it was all about Budgie's loss of his mother when he was a child and how her absence had a knock-on effect on virtually everything in his life, including his relationship with Siouxsie who, incidentally, lost her father to alcoholism when she was young. You might have thought they would be kindred spirits (and on some level probably were) but they eventually divorced and Peter later remarried and moved to Berlin where he lives with cats and dogs, his wife and children. In a sense, all's well that ends well, but I'm sure Peter might say that's not how it is, who knows. I'd imagine that losing a parent early on in life has life-long consequences. He was born in the same year as me so we probably share a few things about life even if it's as low brow as Parma Violets, Sherbert Fountains and Whacky Races.

Pilgrims Lane, nobody around!

I left Esquires around 1230hrs and moseyed on back home, then I drove to Waitrose to buy chicken and rolls and stuff for lunch. I always end up spending a small fortune in Waitrose. Later I tucked in to a vegetable samosa and a chicken and mustard roll as we lurched towards the boredom of Hootenanny and awful people long past their sell-by date, like Sir Lenny Henry. I switched channels constantly, watching snippets of Jaws 2, glimpses of Ronan Keating (I couldn't really take any more than a second of it) and then back to Hootenanny, which, ultimately, is rubbish. I'm fed up with Jools Holland, he's kind of past it (as is Ronan Keating, the 'family favourite'). They're both 'safe pairs of hands' and in Ronan's case, he's a very sensible man, a grown-up and the last thing we need on New Year's Eve are 'the grown-ups'! We need another musical revolution like in 1977 when the Sex Pistols arrived on the scene and shook things up a little. 

What's really annoying about new year shows is that they're not live so when you see Jools or Ronan or whoever it might be bringing in the new year, you know that it's probably recorded just before or immediately after Christmas (during Crimbo Limbo). So I can't take it seriously when he's wishing people a happy new year or when people are embracing one another as the new year beds in...because I know it's all lies.

The fireworks roared and rumbled for all of 10 minutes and then stopped, normally they tend to go on all night (or most of it) but not this year. There were calls for unity and togetherness but I sensed politics at play and wanted none of it.