Duncan, the manager of The Hope Café, emailed me, as I hadn’t been in for three weeks or more:
“Hi! Richard. Hope you and Celina are enjoying Portugal and we look forward to seeing you back here soon. This is just to let you know that we closed as planned a fortnight ago, Friday 25th August, for our renovations, initiated with the generosity of the legacy of dear Edith (PC 278 April 2022). We do miss her! Some of our regular customers who have the skills we need are working for free and often in the evening, so I am hoping we will reopen on Friday 22nd September. I have put up in the window two sketches, one of how we were and one showing how it should look! I have attached a photo:
We’ve already got the steel columns in place and the RSJ (Note 1) is now supporting the first floor. I am happy with the progress we’re making and the wonderful support and time my regulars have been giving. I am sure you would have been here if you hadn’t been in Portugal!
Before we closed we cleared out all the perishable items and took them to the local food bank. Libby took a couple of week’s holidays but she and Josh will between them manage the Coffee Cart that we have hired from Brad Stevens (@cups_coffeevan) for the period. The council gave us permission to station it to the left of the café; it’s open from 0730 to 1630 and so far has proved a God-send to our regulars. We all know that generally people are fickle about stuff and if we’re closed for too long will find somewhere else for their coffee and then may not return, so I am hoping this will keep them loyal.
A photo of Brad’s Coffee Cart in a park somewhere!
Brad gave Josh some useful instruction and he’s using it like a pro! How are you doing? Best wishes Duncan”
“Dear Duncan
Thanks for this; I have been kept vaguely up-to-date by others but now have an even better idea of how it’s going. I guess we’ve all got stories of builders and those who call themselves professionals – just the other day we recommended a good plumber, Henry Rodrigues, to a friend who had an insistent leak in her shower-room, despite the landlord providing someone to fix it. Henry reckoned the guy had no clue whatsoever!! I was reminded that when we first moved into our new apartment; we couldn’t understand why there was a constant smell of drains, until a good plumber looked under the kitchen sink and found the U-bend had been attached incorrectly! So I am delighted to read everyone’s putting their own professional expertise to good use.
Can you ask Libby to email any news she has of Susie as I don’t have her email address? Good luck! Richard”
A couple of days later I got an email from Libby:
“Hi! Richard. Not sure how much you’ve seen of New Zealand (Note 2) but after her stint as a chalet girl in the snow fields of Queenstown, I had expected Susie to travel up the west coast of South Island before crossing the Cook Strait. I was there many decades ago and think the Haast River valley one of the most beautiful in the whole country, so imagined her going there, on to see the Franz Joseph glacier and then Hokitika etc. But she decided to hitch up the East coast ….
…….. past the Moeraki Boulders Beach
….. then up through Christchurch, over the Waimakariri River
….. across to Wellington and up the middle of North Island
Kapiti Island on the west coast at sunset – far away to the left is the northern tip of South Island
….. and through Rotarua to Auckland. She was planning to find some work there but, on a weekend up in the Bay of Islands, Margie, a niece of mine who lives in Hobart, Tasmania, got in touch via WhatsApp saying she had an opening in her catering business for a couple of months, starting at the beginning of September. So, as far as I can tell, she got a seat on one of the twice-a-week direct flights with Jetstar and is now working for Margie in Hobart, hopefully until the end of October. She asked me to pass on her thanks, via you (!), to Michael in Auckland who had offered help in extremis but all good.
Alright for some, huh! Although between you and me she deserves this: needs to sort out her head and come back to Hove and The Hope. She might, of course, decide not to come back, or maybe bring someone with her! Who knows? Life huh!
Duncan says we’ll reopen on the 22nd September. I’ve been to see the progress and think he’s optimistic; I peeped inside and took this photograph:
but we’ll see. Fingers crossed! Take Care Richard and enjoy the sun. Libby”
Without The Hope Café and its customers to provide me with ideas for my postcards, I have fallen back on my file with cuttings from this and notes about that. Some months ago there was some correspondence about Ovaltine.
It’s probable only my older readers who will have drunk a cup of Ovaltine, the malted milk drink believed to make you sleep better, but maybe I’m wrong? Personally the best drink to ensure a good night’s sleep was, I thought, a tumbler filled 50:50 with whiskey and hot milk! What I hadn’t appreciated was Ovaltine’s aphrodisiac qualities and this little ditty should be sung to the tune of the Christmas carol ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’:
“Uncle George and Auntie Mabel fainted at the breakfast table. Let this be an awful warning, not to do it in the morning.
But Ovaltine has put them right, now they do it morn and night.
Uncle George is hoping soon, to do it in the afternoon.
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, Ovaltine’s a damn good thing.”
Roll on the reopening of The Hope Café!
Richard 8th September 2023
Estoril
Note 1 Rolled Steel Joist – often in an ‘I’ shape.
Note 2 Libby doesn’t know of my fairly extensive knowledge of New Zealand.
postcards 