Story #1

It was early Sunday morning when I received a sort but sweet text from an old friend, “coffee?” it read. “Perfect, now?” was my reply. She was down in Dunedin for the weekend and a much-needed catch up was in order! As I was driving to pick her up I was excited at the thought of sitting down over a cup of coffee and properly catching up on the events of the past few months, it had been quite a while since we’d last seen each other.

So, after picking her up and deciding on a café (not a hard decision today as was my choice!) and finding a park in the busy central city we ventured into ‘Everyday Gourmet’. I loved this café, I knew it well and knew that the coffee was especially tasty, after all what’s better than gourmet? We ordered our drinks, a trim mocha and soy latte, and picked a small table right by the window overlooking George Street. It was always interesting watching all the people walk by. We made ourselves comfortable and launched into full-blown conversation about what we had missed in each other’s lives in the recent months. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the lady who worked here parked in front of the coffee machines making our drinks, I knew it wouldn’t be long until they were sitting on the table in front of us. Yum, yum, yum. The chatter continued, about life, about study and of course about the developments in our hometown, Christchurch.

I found myself thinking how nice it was to have her down here in Dunedin. She was one of those friends who I didn’t get to see that often but it was always the same when we did eventually meet up. Whenever we were both in the same city, we always went out for coffee! It was our tradition. These coffee dates were not only catch-ups but they also fuelled our relationship. After all new memories need to be made in relationships every so often.

Anyway, our drinks arrived and we sipped away contently. All the while still chatting and laughing over the stories we each had to share. Conscious of the short amount of time that we had left, we made the most by simply enjoying each others company and not worrying/talking about the remainder of our weekends or our busy weeks ahead.

As we finished off our drinks scooping out the remainder of the foam with our teaspoons, it seemed it was time to leave. We got up and said our thankyous to the staff, common courtesy that I felt was always necessary, and left the café. Saying our goodbyes to each other we planned our next coffee date for two weeks time when I was home for holidays. I found myself counting down the days already.