What’s a completely useless fact you love sharing?

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My favourite cafe started off in life as a coaching inn, 500 years ago. Built over two storeys, plus a mezzanine in between, the ground floor is bland, functional and houses just the counter plus a few tables for disabled people.

Although I’m disabled myself, I don’t use the ground floor tables, because there might be somebody who comes in who is less able to climb stairs than me. Anybody in a mobility scooter, say, would be scuppered straight away.

Climbing the stairs are a struggle but I can manage it, if I use the handrail. I can take it slow, though I must confess to taking pretty much everything slow these days. The main eating area, the upper floor, is worth it since it shows this beautiful old building, in all its glory. Plus these guys serve a decent breakfast. So while it is an effort to make it up there, the reward is worthwhile once I do.

I usually combine the trip with some shopping, and happen to have one of those traditional French market baskets. I thought about describing it, but I’ve just pictured one above, instead. That saved you a thousand words, if the saying is anything to go by. Mega-stylish, or so I think. Okay, maybe not in deepest Wiltshire. But I’ve had it for years and I love it.

Anyway, I only have one functioning hand. And as I said, when I’m going up and down stairs, I need it to steady me on the handrail.

So taking my bag up and down with me means that I need to grip it in my teeth.

Ugh! I know. But needs must. Self-esteem was the first thing to go out of the window when I suffered a stroke.

Anyway, carrying this ruddy great shopping bag in my teeth means that I no longer see my feet. And it’s dicey enough, negotiating stairs, as it is.

Which kinda leads me to my point.

When I go into this cafe, there are twelve steps up to a kind-of half-landing. I go straight across that, then there are another three steps up to another landing, which is the level of the mezzanine. It’s nice in there, but always full. From that landing, I go up the remaining flight of ten steps into the main eating area.

Quod erat demonstrandum, as my Latin teacher used to say…