I've been going to the 'Caffe' Nero in Streatham since the cafe on the Common closed for Christmas, and I have spotted a few fellow refugees, looking rather confined and awkward in the noisy, cramped interior of Nero and a few ofthem actually smuggling their dogs in, which is sheer genius. But what strikes me as particularly weird is the sudden emergence of Apple-Mac-using, vaguely intellectual looking Bourgeois Streathamites - where have they all been hiding? Where do they all come from? Or are they travelling in from Balham and Clapham and even further afield? The noise is extraordinary, but I've been able to get a lot of reading done. I hope I'm tough enough to return to the common on Tuesday..when I ran there this afternoon the peace and quiet was like a haven, the worse the weather the better it gets. Though it wasn't actually raining, just a bit gray and damp and squelchy..yep..came home covered in mud..hooray