The Coffee Company

The Christmas break is almost over - for the kids, that is. Me, I did not have much of a break anyway, working part-time through most of it because there's simply too much stuff I still need to do. I'm starting up a new research project - it's small and something I'm doing mostly because there are a few literary works I enjoyed and wanted to write about. Every once in a while I indulge in something like this, going back to my roots as a literary scholar, but as always, with any research project big or small, it feels as if I have to discover how to write an academic paper all over again. Of course, once I get into it, I know how to do it, but on the outset there is always a sense that I won't be able to pull it off this time. In any case, this one need to be ready by the end of the month, and I should have started with it a long time ago, so there wasn't much time to rest throughout the Christmas break. 

One of the places I've done much of my work for the past month, is the local Coffee Company. A Dutch chain of coffee bars - in fact, as far as I know, the first chain like this - Coffee Company always offers a pleasant place to hang out or work. I remember how, almost two decades ago, I used to spend a lot of time at a Coffee Company in the centre of Amsterdam, where I lived at the time, and it was very much my first encounter with the coffee bar culture that has now become such an integral part of modern life. Apart from the fact that I love how their places are designed - modern and comfortable; white walls, wooden panels, black furntiture and comfortable Chesterfields - they actually serve a good coffee. That sets them apart, of course, from the most obiquitous coffee bar chain of all, Starbuck's. I know it's fashionable - and clichéd - to complain about the bad coffee at Starbuck's, but for me it's not so much that they serve poor quality coffee, but that they pretend they don't. It's as if McDonalds would make it look as if they're serving an exquisite cuisine - they don't, and they don't act as if they do, and that's fine. It's that pretense, that banging on about high quality beans and selection processes, and whatnot, and then serving absolutely mediocre products that really annoys me. 

In any case, not so with the Coffee Company, so I am happy we have one basically just around the corner and down the street from where we live. This morning, however, I'm not here to work, but to have an early Saturday morning breakfast with my kids. Billie Stormzy is all excited, because he was here with his mum already yesterday, and got a piece of chocolate then, which he really enjoyed. My daughter, Rihanna Gaga, is also looking forwards to the delights she knows they serve here - all kinds of cakes and cookies that she loves to sample. She's on her rollerskates. We have to wait in line, and they're checking out the cakes and pies on display. Rihanna Gaga picks a chocolate cake and, of course, Billie Stormzy wants the same as his sister. He also wants what he had yesterday: a Tony Chocolonely chocolate bar. And, as always when we are in a bar, restaurant or café, he wants an apple juice. His sister also has her usual beverage: water. Me, I take a special offer they have,consisting of a coffee, orange juice and croissant. The cheerful barrista takes our order, and I tell her I love the song that's currently playing. She looks it up for me: it's a band called the Yot Club. I've never heard of them, but they play the kind of reverb-y dream pop that I love and that they always seem to play on early Saturdays and Sundays in places like this.

Rihanna Gaga picks the table, and we sit down. The chocolate cakes, apple juice, water and chocolate bar can be taken immediately, as well as my croissant. My orange juice needs to be pressed, and my coffee also takes time. The kids start eating their chocolate cakes, while I doodle in a small book. About a week ago, I started a series of drawings in this book that my partner brought as a souvenir from India about 17 years ago. It's a very pretty book but I never quite knew what to do with it. My handwriting is terrible, so using it as a notebook would just spoil it, especially because it has no lines, so whatever I'd have written in it would have been unreadable. Then, I got an idea. Billie Stormzy loves to go to my bookshelves and take out random books. Why? To look at the page numbers. So, I thought, what if I'd make him a book in which each page only contained a number? And then I'd make each number a mini-artwork. The book contains hundred pages, so that means a hundred small artworks, some cheesy, some boring, some quite badly drawn, but some, if I say so myself, really quite pretty. My partner and daughter have joined me, and have drawn a few numbers already, too. I'm up to 42 now, which I am drawing as a painting hanging on a wall. I enjoy coming up what the room looks like, designing wallpaper and adding furniture. 

Meanwhile, the orange juice and coffee are ready. Rihanna Gaga is off outside, because she wants to rollerskate on the large square in front of the Coffee Company. You see, this isn't a regular Coffee Company: it's part of the complex that forms the so-called Circus Theatre, a large building in Scheveningen where they stage big shows. Nowadays, that's mostly Disney Musicals that run for months, but originally, this was an actual circus. The building is from around 1900 and really quite pretty, with undulating walls and a large dome. The Coffee Company is situated in a circular side-building, with the walls mostly made of glass, so it's very light inside. In front of the Circus Theatre there is a large square, that consists of several slopes, which makes it an ideal place to rollerskate or skateboard. 

Billie Stormzy continues to eat his chocolate cake bit by bit, while I keep drawing. After a while, he's finished. Rihanna Gaga returns and suggests we play a game of Uno. That is very much to Billie Stormzy's taste - he cannot play the game, but he really enjoys sitting on my lap and keeping score of all the numbers that pass by while Rihanna Gaga and I put down our cards one after the other.  With the dream pop on the sound system, there's a wonderful weekend feel to the place. There are a few other customers, mostly older couples reading newspapers or chatting. I also notice that barristas that work here on other days drop by to chat with their colleague on duty - this is something I've seen more often whenever I am here. It must be really nice to be part of this team if you come to hang out on your day off - they always look like they're enjoying each other's company a lot.

Rihanna Gaga complains I'm not playing according to the rules, but I suspect she's changing them whenever she sees fit. After a while, I return to drawing - I've drawn the number 43 as if it were printed on the side of a can of softdrink and I am now drawing 44 as candles on a birthday cake. Rihanna Gaga and Billie Stormzy are playing together, laughing and chasing each other. As the room is circular, they can circumnavigate a central island that consists of a 360 degree couch, around which a series of tables and chairs are placed; it's at one of these tables that we're sitting. After a while, I repeat to Rihanna Gaga something I said earlier: that I don't want her to go rollerskating inside the place. She complies and we sit at the table again. The song that was playing when we placed our order plays once more and I make a mental note to look up the Yot Club when we get home. I've ordered a second coffee - a cappucino with oatmilk, like the first one - and am finishing it quickly, because it's clear the kids have had enough of sitting around and are getting a bit rowdy. First, Billie Stormzy still needs to go to the toilet, and Rihanna Gaga disappears for a while after that - it turns out she's also on the toilet, not rollerskating around outside. Then, we're ready go, leaving for whatever the final weekend of the Christmas break has to offer us.