A bit of peace

I’m sitting in the heart of Old Street outside a café on Great Eastern Street, amidst the traffic and the noise, and I feel a sense of delicious warmth and peace. The warmth is not surprising as the sun is shining and I’m basically sitting in a little oven, with concrete all around and my table and chair made of silvery metal. The peace does surprise me. The noise was unbearable when I got here, but as I’ve been sitting and letting my muscles relax, the sounds have receded into a background hum, with the occasional aeroplane somehow softening the already soothing buzz of the main road right next to me.

I ate a salad composed of leaves, olives, sundried tomatoes, chicken, avocado, roasted aubergine, roasted courgette and roasted pepper.

“Do you have soya milk?” The crucial question. If he’d said “No”, I’d have gone to the next café – a chain that pretty much only serves wheat and butter in various formats, but they do have soya milk.

Thankfully he said, “Yes.”

“Okay, I’d like a salad please.” I said. “What salads do you serve?”

 “Base salad, plus anything you want.”

“Anything I want?” I sounded incredulous, because I was. I didn’t think to ask the price at this point, but thankfully I didn’t have to sell my mother for this salad. It was reasonably priced.

“Yes,” he smiled at me. “Anything you want.”

Why didn’t I ask for more? Simple answer – because what I asked for was exactly what I wanted and it turned out to be the absolute most delicious salad I’ve eaten in a long time. To the accompaniment of traffic and scorching reflected sunshine.

He assumed I wanted a soya latte. Do I look like a soya latte kind of girl, I wonder? I guess I must do. “No. A tea with soya milk please.”

My tea is now cold but I love having a mug of tea next to me as I type. When my friend arrives, I might buy another. It’s delicious. Truly my English upbringing coming out.

And my English upbringing was also deeply satisfied when the horses trotted past me, admittedly slightly frothing at the mouth, which put me off my food temporarily, but once the last fleck of froth had passed me by, all I could see was their beautiful sleek shiny hides, and their powerful healthy muscles.

I could almost imagine I’m in the countryside and this, I guess, is where my deep sense of peace comes from. It couldn’t come from being in London, surely.