356 days

I have been reading my way around blogosphere a bit recently and been thinking about what's a perfect blog, how many words I want to see written, etc. I usually feel my pulse rate go up when I look at blogs (except those of my favourite bloggers' - see the list on the right) and see eight million links you have to click on, each one of which take you somewhere completely different, forcing your brain to adjust to new topics with every click. Nonooonono - I like my narratives linear, with clear chapters and footnotes - and lots of fotos. Not too much text, wordage, chattering and babbling, humming, hawing and twittering - this is writing after all, not a conversation. Unless it's about food. Recipes and tales about great dinners in fabulous restaurants, or where to get things like melon ballers, rosewater or palm sugar. The best blogs, though, are like letters from a your best mate, or a sudden inspiration, no matter their length. made by Scots barista in Glyptothek ...

My neighbourhood is full of cafés and bars: for a start, the most famous ice cream parlour in Muenchen is on my street corner. There is the Greek, a couple of Italian places, a lovely Indian restaurant with individual cushions on the chairs. There are also some good old traditional Bavarian pubs left, where you smell the sauerkraut as you are passing. I am fond of them. But the best of all is Barista, a place that sells antique and strange coffee machines and old crockery and tins and stuff, and over time is has become a full scale café that makes lovely coffee. It is not at all cute, or nostalgic, or trendy. It just is what it is - a jumble of stuff to do with coffee. You can sit outside on nice colourful chairs, (oh and by the way if I had gorgeous thick curly gray hair like that I would not bother colouring it) or inside, where the delicious cakes are they make probably the best cappuccino outside Italy (I know everyone says that of their favourite café but it is true ...