Not a Complete Drop-Out.

The post I made earlier regarding the difficulties experienced by the recluse will have been presumed, I’m sure, to have come from personal experience. Indeed it did, but with one exception: I wouldn’t describe myself as being ‘truly’ reclusive, but only mostly so.

For example, next week I intend to take a small gift of some kind to the ladies in the Costa Coffee shop in Ashbourne because I take pleasure in their accommodation of my requests and their general niceness to me. They bring a hint of lightness to a mostly dull town, and it would seem remiss of me not to acknowledge the fact.

My request last week was that the pot of porridge which I occasionally buy be heated rather more than is customary in that establishment. I like my porridge hot, you see, for two reasons: the little sugar I sprinkle onto the surface melts swiftly and surely to a satisfying state of softness, and the cream I pour onto it reduces the temperature of the confection to a pleasant warmth rather than cooling it to the unpleasantly lukewarm. This is important to me.

And so they did, and then the manager made a point of checking with me that it was satisfactory. I offered my thanks, but it wasn’t an isolated incident and their year-round attention to my preferences needs to be met with something more concrete. Hence the gift.

And so, you see, this little example demonstrates that the dark cloak of reclusiveness has not yet fully covered me. And maybe it also demonstrates that my fairy godmother placed the Costa ladies into my path to provide the little light of which I speak. Isn’t that nice?

(So how do I reward the fairy godmother? Mmm… perhaps it would be easier to be a complete recluse after all.)