Had a lovely lunch with a beautiful friend today. Well the company was lovely - sadly the actual consuming of the lunch was more of a trial as I have just had my braces tweaked and as a result eating is not such an enjoyable experience right now. Which resulted in me getting a telling off from the usually very sweet guy who owns and runs the cafe we were frequenting for not eating the crusty ciabatta that was part of my mozzarella salad - I tried to disarm him with a smile while explaining my current issue regarding said braces...this information concerned him greatly and before I could stop him he rushed off to the kitchen to make me a "fresh gazpacho". He duly presented me with the soup with a great flourish and a beaming smile...which is of course utterly delightful and charming and thoughtful and caring of him... And as a result of such charmingly thoughtful care I just couldn't bring myself to tell him that I have a total horror of cold soups (stemming from an unfortunate incident involving a now ex-boyfriend, cold lettuce soup and his terrifying mother - I mean lettuce soup, really?!). So, as I am a total wimp, I ate (drank?) as much of the aforementioned tomato based cold soup as I could and quickly chased it down with a thoroughly delicious hot chocolate... All this amused my beautiful friend greatly and she is very much looking forward to our next visit to this establishment - apparently I am a 'tonic'. I put this down to the fact she has recently had a nasty bike accident which resulted in a spot of concussion (and a few broken ribs and a busted knee) and a hip replacement (that was scheduled, nothing to do with the bike accident!) - she's not really been getting out very much lately so she is quite easily amused.

Anyway - this sign was above the door just inside the cafe, and it made me smile.

On another note tonight is my first night totally alone in my little hofje and it is the weirdest feeling. Now I am aware that to many people being alone is no biggie, is even quite pleasurable and desirable, but to someone (me!) who has somehow arrived at 41 years of age without ever really living alone it is quite terrifying and is going to take some getting used to. It is so very quiet! And it took me 15 minutes to figure out how to put the TV on - and then I could only watch BBC as I have no idea how to change the channels! And now it is horribly late and every little sound is making me jump...

But, all things considered, I am a very lucky girl and life is good x