For those of you living in Cornwall (there must be someone else besides the “Truro-rians” responsible for this mess), you may like to know there is “a new shop modelled after the retro cafés of Tokyo” in Falmouth. The news keep saying you can “sip coffee, play classic games and even buy them too”. The place is called Loading.
Is it this retro?
“Yes, I remember Adlestrop –
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat …”
Well, not Adlestrop, but Machynlleth, and it was not an afternoon of heat, though it would have been late June … or perhaps early July. Presumably the café was there but I don’t remember it, nor much of Machynlleth either. And there certainly weren’t any birds singing. I’ll believe it’s the most beautiful small town in Mid Wales if the blog says so, but I have no impression.
It was 1969, I was a post-graduate (UK-style) student and spent some 10 days of the summer holiday camping in North Wales with my then girlfriend as that was all we could afford. It rained … it rained solidly the whole time, all day every day except one … the outer tent was wet, the inner tent was wet through, rain was dripping through to where I/we were trying to sleep … and we moved camp sites every day.
Well we arrived in a site at Tal-y-Llyn, I think, set up sodden tent and went into the local town to find something to eat … no cafés, no Indian restaurant, no Chinese take-away … and it was Sunday, and we had forgotten it was Sunday, and we were in one of the last two dry counties in Wales, so the pub was closed.
We drove down to Machynlleth, as that was over the border in the next county. We got there at about 7 … the cafés had all closed, the fish-and-chip shop had closed … the only place that was open was a pub. So in we went … we got a pint of not very enthralling beer, but the only thing that they could give us to eat was a packet of cheese-and-onion crisps! We crunched our crisps, sank our beer and went back to our sodden tent.
I suppose we must have gone through Machynlleth the next day on our way down to Devil’s Bridge, near Aberystwyth … or were we headed to Bala? I don’t remember anything about it; I didn’t have my eyes shut, but the trip was nearing its end … as was the relationship. The only thing that is engraved on my memory is the name “Machynlleth”.¶
Mark
¶ Slight exaggeration of elimination of memory, but with due homage to Edward Thomas.
[quote=“AmberV”]
Is it this retro?
Add a few katanas and a view of Mount Fuji on the background and you are almost there 
