Working Over Coffee.
This morning, I decided to venture
into my old haunt Caffè Nero, to do some admin before going to the office to rehearse.
It’s been a long time since I’ve sat in to work. There was a point, a year or so ago, when I’d come here every day. It was a great way of getting out of the house to spur myself on to write. When you’re self-employed and haven’t got much in the diary, it’s easy to stay at home and do nothing. You wind up not speaking to anyone all day. If I hadn’t made a point of walking into town each morning, finding a table in my favourite coffee shop and then getting out my laptop, this blog wouldn’t exist. I also wouldn’t have worked up any stand-up material; Hitchin’s branch of Caffè Nero has a lot to answer for.
As soon as we started renting an office, I came here less and less. Having a room to work in was invaluable, particularly when putting together my show. While Caffè Nero was great for writing, I obviously couldn’t use it to say my material out loud. If I had, I would have got a lot of strange looks.
While I love our office – and it still excites me to go to a space that belongs to us – it can be lonely. I miss the conversations with the Nero staff, which would break up my writing. Counter-intuitively, it’s harder to motivate yourself when you’re in a room on your own. There’s no physical distinction between admin, writing and rehearsing. Everything feels the same. This is why I returned to Caffè Nero today. I knew I could email tomorrow’s line-up and do any last-minute admin for the gig, have some lunch and then walk to the office to rehearse my show. That’s the plan, anyway. I’m fully aware of the amount of biscuits that await me. The jury’s out as to whether I’ll use the afternoon to tighten up ‘…and Ephgrave’, or to get fat. Stay tuned to find out.
It’s been a long time since I’ve sat in to work. There was a point, a year or so ago, when I’d come here every day. It was a great way of getting out of the house to spur myself on to write. When you’re self-employed and haven’t got much in the diary, it’s easy to stay at home and do nothing. You wind up not speaking to anyone all day. If I hadn’t made a point of walking into town each morning, finding a table in my favourite coffee shop and then getting out my laptop, this blog wouldn’t exist. I also wouldn’t have worked up any stand-up material; Hitchin’s branch of Caffè Nero has a lot to answer for.
As soon as we started renting an office, I came here less and less. Having a room to work in was invaluable, particularly when putting together my show. While Caffè Nero was great for writing, I obviously couldn’t use it to say my material out loud. If I had, I would have got a lot of strange looks.
While I love our office – and it still excites me to go to a space that belongs to us – it can be lonely. I miss the conversations with the Nero staff, which would break up my writing. Counter-intuitively, it’s harder to motivate yourself when you’re in a room on your own. There’s no physical distinction between admin, writing and rehearsing. Everything feels the same. This is why I returned to Caffè Nero today. I knew I could email tomorrow’s line-up and do any last-minute admin for the gig, have some lunch and then walk to the office to rehearse my show. That’s the plan, anyway. I’m fully aware of the amount of biscuits that await me. The jury’s out as to whether I’ll use the afternoon to tighten up ‘…and Ephgrave’, or to get fat. Stay tuned to find out.
