That Cafe - once more with feeling

P is away at his annual staff conference (that should be fun given they’re mid redundancies…) so S is staying at mine for a couple of days. Her company is always welcome, but right now I’m particularly glad of it.

She suggests ‘one last visit’ to That Café.

A fine suggestion, but that word last is hard to ignore. The state of denial that has served me well for the past few months is getting harder to maintain.

Fittingly enough, the ‘last’ of our occasional, last minute decisions to catch the early menu, is also a first. Sarah even risks a sticky toffee pudding for desert, a definite improvement on Caroline's experience at the Holiday Inn the other month.



Unwittingly however, we’ve chosen the first Wednesday of the months and hence have stumbled in to ‘jazz night’.

Inexplicably this actually appears to be something of a draw and we nearly don’t get a table.

Fortunately, the ‘jazz’ isn’t too obtrusive or free form and it doesn’t spoil the meal.

As we leave I see the duo and lo and behold the female singer looks familiar. She does have a lovely voice, but jazz just isn’t my thing, so you’ll forgive me I hope (especially you Mr Lawson), for venturing the suggestion that this isn’t so much a happy coincidence as a hopeful sign that Manchester has a fairly limited pool of jazz musicians…