watch

 Watch the woman behind the counter take one order at a time from a group and deal with each order and then take the next one. Each one singly, each one slowly it takes a long time to complete the list.

Watch, she is at number three, a group of five. They are all raising their eyebrows, as she turns to address the next person, and then goes to get a plate and then goes to the cake display and then gets a tray and then starts the coffee machine and then asks whether or not sugar and milk and then finalises the tray. Then she turns to  the next person in the group.

And repeat the procedure, and again.

Order a coffee and a buttered pretzel, and take a picture of the QR  code on the table to take care of the covid registration.

By this time she has forgotten whether the coffee should be black or white.

The coffee should be black, without sugar.

Take the tray outside and take a seat.

Watch two men unload a delivery truck, a small refrigerated truck. There is a wooden pallet on the road, watch as innumerable white boxes of fresh pasta are neatly placed upon the pallet, until they are stacked as tall as the man stacking them. The other man goes back to the shop to get a hand lift truck to drag the pallet back to the shop. It is a wobbly load, a young woman from the shop comes out to help. Two people steady the load and one pulls the truck and they all move down the pavement to the italian supermarket on the corner.

Sit and finish the coffee and the pretzel. It is a warm day, and today's walk had been five kilometres.

Still, the depression of the last week or two will not go away. It is not a thing to write about, it would be so much nicer to write of beautiful cheerful things.

But this is the way things are now