I just wanted to write a blog post singing the praises of the Waterfront Cafe at Benson.
My friend Sally and I meet up here regularly for coffee, cakes and a chat. It is right by the river, so has a lovely outlook with lots of boats and meadows beyond. There are lots of tables inside and a large, canopied terrace outside, so you can always get a table -- including one in the fresh air and sunshine, if you wish.
The coffee is good and they have an unusual and scrummy range of cakes (we are particularly partial to the Portuguese custard tarts). They also serve a range of hot meals, cooked breakfast, etc.
The waiting staff are friendly and efficient.
What more could you want?!
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
03 March, 2017
15 November, 2014
The changing definition of 'friend'
A while back I heard an article on the radio about a woman who had set herself the target of phoning a certain number of her Facebook friends over the period of a year. Her aim was to reconnect with people she hadn't spoken to for years. She missed the kind of relationship which she (and I) remembered from her teenage years where she would get in from school and then pick up the phone and chat to one of her friends. She missed the intimacy and nuanced voice-to-voice conversations that you can have by phone, but which are almost impossible to have on line.
What surprised me, though, was the number of people she was proposing to phone. I can't recall exact details, but I know that it was in the high tens. How could all these people be friends, I wondered, and how on earth would she find that she had anything to say to all of them. Conversations by phone are considerably more in depth and demanding than communicating via someone's Facebook wall, for example.
This got me thinking about the nature of friendship and the change in the meaning of the word 'friend' that has been precipitated by Facebook and other social networking sites. In my book a friend is someone I know well, who I can trust, who I have things in common with, who I can sit down and really talk to over a cup of coffee. But a Facebook friend is none of these things -- not by definition, anyway. It is possible that a 'real' friend (as per my definition) can be a Facebook friend too, but a Facebook friend does not have to have any of the characteristics of a 'real' friend. And that, of course, is how people manage to have so many Facebook friends. . .but they're not really friends at all!
I've noticed something similar with LinkedIn. I had someone connect to me the other day who categorised me as one of their friends. This is someone who used to work in the same unit as me. We didn't work together as such, and we certainly weren't friends. Not in my book, anyway -- we had no social relationship separate from work. In my book we were colleagues. Yet this colleague is twenty years younger than me and so I wonder whether, being fully of the social networking generation, his definition of 'friend' is simply different from mine. His definition is informed by Facebook, and mine is not.
So, it seems that the on-line world really is affecting all aspects of our lives -- even the semantics of concepts as old and basic to human nature as friendship.
What surprised me, though, was the number of people she was proposing to phone. I can't recall exact details, but I know that it was in the high tens. How could all these people be friends, I wondered, and how on earth would she find that she had anything to say to all of them. Conversations by phone are considerably more in depth and demanding than communicating via someone's Facebook wall, for example.
This got me thinking about the nature of friendship and the change in the meaning of the word 'friend' that has been precipitated by Facebook and other social networking sites. In my book a friend is someone I know well, who I can trust, who I have things in common with, who I can sit down and really talk to over a cup of coffee. But a Facebook friend is none of these things -- not by definition, anyway. It is possible that a 'real' friend (as per my definition) can be a Facebook friend too, but a Facebook friend does not have to have any of the characteristics of a 'real' friend. And that, of course, is how people manage to have so many Facebook friends. . .but they're not really friends at all!
I've noticed something similar with LinkedIn. I had someone connect to me the other day who categorised me as one of their friends. This is someone who used to work in the same unit as me. We didn't work together as such, and we certainly weren't friends. Not in my book, anyway -- we had no social relationship separate from work. In my book we were colleagues. Yet this colleague is twenty years younger than me and so I wonder whether, being fully of the social networking generation, his definition of 'friend' is simply different from mine. His definition is informed by Facebook, and mine is not.
So, it seems that the on-line world really is affecting all aspects of our lives -- even the semantics of concepts as old and basic to human nature as friendship.
05 July, 2014
Giffords Circus
We had a lovely, and rather unusual, birthday party for my ten year old last weekend. We took her, her older sister and three of her friends to see Giffords Circus.
Giffords is a small circus which tours Gloucestershire and the south west of England, setting up on local village greens. It was started ten years ago by Nell and Toti Gifford and is a little bit different from the other circuses that you can see in Britain. It is, I suppose, what you'd call traditional -- more like a travelling troupe than a Chinese State-style extravaganza-- and that's exactly what the Giffords were aiming for.
There are acrobats, fire jugglers, strong men, dancers, horse riders, a super-flexible gymnast... There's an absolutely brilliant clown -- the best I've seen -- not just hackneyed slapstick, but 'proper' funny. And there are various animals -- horses, dogs, doves, and even a turkey and a goose! The dogs, by the way, are dalmatians, which delighted my daughter, who is absolutely mad about dalmatians -- indeed anything spotty!
The show has an intimate, family feel. This is partly a facet of the small top, but it's also the fact that the performers clearly love what they do (we bumped into one of them in the loos, who remarked with a big smile on her face, 'It's not really work!'). You can also get a sense of just how hard it is to do the kinds of things that circus performers do -- one of the acrobats, who was trying to to do a backwards double somersault onto the shoulders of a tower of three of his fellows, missed first time. But they simply did it again, and it worked!
The show was beautifully produced -- very theatrical, excellent acting, gorgeous costumes. And the troupe is supported by a group of musicians who are extremely talented, including a singer with a fantastic operatic voice.
This was our first visit to Giffords Circus (I only found out about them because I happened to be flicking through a local magazine while I was waiting for my kids to have their hair cut), but I certainly don't think it will be our last. I'm already planning next year's outing!
Giffords is a small circus which tours Gloucestershire and the south west of England, setting up on local village greens. It was started ten years ago by Nell and Toti Gifford and is a little bit different from the other circuses that you can see in Britain. It is, I suppose, what you'd call traditional -- more like a travelling troupe than a Chinese State-style extravaganza-- and that's exactly what the Giffords were aiming for.
There are acrobats, fire jugglers, strong men, dancers, horse riders, a super-flexible gymnast... There's an absolutely brilliant clown -- the best I've seen -- not just hackneyed slapstick, but 'proper' funny. And there are various animals -- horses, dogs, doves, and even a turkey and a goose! The dogs, by the way, are dalmatians, which delighted my daughter, who is absolutely mad about dalmatians -- indeed anything spotty!
The show has an intimate, family feel. This is partly a facet of the small top, but it's also the fact that the performers clearly love what they do (we bumped into one of them in the loos, who remarked with a big smile on her face, 'It's not really work!'). You can also get a sense of just how hard it is to do the kinds of things that circus performers do -- one of the acrobats, who was trying to to do a backwards double somersault onto the shoulders of a tower of three of his fellows, missed first time. But they simply did it again, and it worked!
The show was beautifully produced -- very theatrical, excellent acting, gorgeous costumes. And the troupe is supported by a group of musicians who are extremely talented, including a singer with a fantastic operatic voice.
This was our first visit to Giffords Circus (I only found out about them because I happened to be flicking through a local magazine while I was waiting for my kids to have their hair cut), but I certainly don't think it will be our last. I'm already planning next year's outing!
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