A woman on an old bicycle. So old, it squeaks as she rides; a rhythmic screeching as she turns the pedals, that causes heads to turn. From behind she looks relatively normal. Her dark hair has been died an orangey blonde that looks almost theatrical, and the mass of small curls has been pinned back in messy twists. When you get closer, you realize the clips she has used are small, colourful bows. The kind that are sold in ‘matching’ packets of four in pharmacies, alongside the travel mirrors and mini hairbrushes. She turns her head to check the traffic and that’s when you get the double takes, and the theatrical impression is confirmed. A powered-white face makes the bright red lipstick and bright blue eyeliner even more striking. Lashes are drawn on under the eyebrows with thick eye pencil. Cheeks are young-blushing pink. The drama queen, in her brown cord trousers and orange cardi, seems unaware of the looks she is receiving and the surprised murmurs.

30th April

So here I am, back in my favourite cafe. It's nice outside, so the sofas are free and I can sit opposite the door and watch the people pass in and out. There's a girl sitting at the table next to me. She has dark curly hair and big glasses. Her top is a dusty pinky-purple, and a thick material with an embroidered pattern of circles and shapes that fascinates me. When I first sat down and started getting out my bits and bobs, I didn't pay much attention to her. Until I looked up and realized that she was watching me intently. It's funny how odd it feels when you realize someone is doing to you what you're constantly doing to someone else. Even if more subtly...



A girl just walked into the cafe with hair tied up in a pony tail, red converse and a green-checked shirt underneath a dark blue, knitted jumper with three bunny rabbits in the front. When I say girl, I mean late teens/early twenties. The middle rabbit had a red and white striped waistcoat on. She is pretty, in a foreign-exchange-student kind of way (which is what I assumed her to be) and is reading "Three men in a boat", which she appears to find amusing at times. But that jumper..?
Two blondes have plonked their noisy selves next to me on the sofa. In the five minutes before I plugged myself in to avoid their noise, they giggled over a particular drink, covered the gossip of a recent party and squealed over a distinction. I can't help but think that the two cokes they've just bought can't be doing much to help their hyperactivity. "Oh, that's shocking!"

Service Station

A service station appears to be one of the best places for people-watching. Sitting at a fake-wooden table, nibbling on M&S sandwiches, I am for once not concentrating on the slightly confusing, disorganised, clamouring movements of my family. This time our table is in a perfect position to view the scores of people passing by. I watch, eyes wide, as colours and attitudes and postures sweep past me.
A short, dark man with a yellow reflective waistcoat on tempers past, brow set in a slight frown, arms swinging with self importance. A mother with her early-teens-daughter clips by with long hair fluttering around their shoulders; she in a short, sassy, green jacket and tight jeans, and her daughter in a belted fawn trench coat and grey leggings that are artistically wrinkled around the ankles. A couple of Asian-coloured young ones are dragged past by their older, though still young, sister, who shouts in stressed distraction in the direction of her parents. The children pull back and are forced to hop-skip as they are pulled along by aching arms at a speed their short legs aren’t accustomed to.
But, ah! A case-study! These types of people I always wish I had hours to observe. A shortish man with a shaved head and a green t-shirt, a ring in his ear and a brown stain on his front teeth stretches and mutters to his young companions, then walks off in the direction of the shop after giving me a lewd, sex-god look that fails to hit it’s mark. The two left behind are awkward in each other’s space. He is a tall, lanky off-shoot of his (I assume) older brother. He wears a baggy grey t-shirt and dark jeans, and sports a shaved head and a pair of wire glasses. He stands just close enough to her, facing her, to suggest they are ‘together’. She stands at ease; hot pink top and very blonde, straight, jagged hair giving a bright confidence that only accentuates his awkwardness. She rummages in her deep, sequined bag for her purse, and he puts his arm around her in a way that completely but not quite manages to miss touching her. When they move off, he reaches self-consciously for her hand. I notice that they manage to somehow miss doing this properly too - he kind of clutches her fingers and her thumb only just grazes his. They look almost as if they are acting a part they’ve only recently been given and not had time to practise. She seems almost care-less, while he has an ungainly, discomforted air, as if he is scared of letting his real feelings appear too obvious. I’m given the impression she is his first girlfriend… Possibly.
And as they leave, another potential case-study appears on the scene. A young woman with long brown hair stops just by our table. She looks as though she has stepped out of a magazine, in a crumpled, ‘my-outfit-is-designer-style-but-I-can’t-quite-make-it-look-natural’ type way. She is wearing a black flat hat and a grey, baggy, soft t-shirt with rolled up sleeves that reaches down below her backside and is cinched in by a black waist-belt. Her black leggings lead down to grey, flat boots. She has a discomfiting air. Her eyes are perpetually wide, and she leans forward slightly as she stands and walks, making her appear very intense. She walks with a slight limp, as if she had just stubbed her toe. It seems she is waiting for her companions - she stands with a weedy looking man who has a distinct lack of hair, heavy framed glasses and a high, nasal voice. She appears slightly worried; while discussing whether their companions could be in the car already, or still behind, she starts back, and then turns forward again, as if unsure which way to go, but unwilling to simply stand and wait for a little while. Eventually they move off. A couple of minutes later the weedy guy comes back past again, meeting just in front of our table (how convenient!) with a tall, dark haired lady in a white t-shirt and flared jeans with a wide, plaited belt. A third member of the party. It appears they both aren’t worried about where the rest of their group has disappeared to, but both seem to think that assuring the grey-topped young woman that everyone is safe was important, as the man tells the lady where the young woman was waiting, and while he wanders off in the opposite direction, she strides away to find her friend.
A little while after they’ve left, a splash of colour appears in my sightline. Three women in saris - dark blue, dark red, and a light, light green. The dark blue is the mother. She has heavy material trousers on and yellow stars on her scarf, and a dumpy figure. Then the two daughters both with slim figures and longish legs. The green young woman has layers of make up on and carefully defined brows. She wears a plain, floaty sari and a headscarf and leggings with a matching flowery pattern in yellow. The other young woman has the same pattern to her dress - plain coloured sari and flowered headscarf and leggings - but her colour is just that little bit brighter and her pattern is just that little bit more striking. She wears long pearl earrings. They wear their colours and sparkly heels as if it were the most natural thing in the world, but a chance encounter with the group in the woman’s bathrooms reaffirms my suspicion that they are just as aware of the attention they are gaining as I am; they stopped for a full five minutes in front of the mirror checking the placement of their headscarves and the neatness of their makeup.

Weekdays

I suppose this could be called a sketch, although it is more of a cartoon/caricature. It is a drawing of a couple of different people in my various classes, just placed in an odd situation. Needless to say, there is no large board of photos of random people up where my classmates do their presentations... I have discovered the tall guy on the left is one of the easiest people to draw. It's those long legs.

12th March

The cafe was full of students today. In pairs or groups of three they cluster around tables and chat and laugh. Excluding those with laptops and deadlines. Like the guy opposite me with his black Fujitsu laptop and foreign-student accent. He has an espresso in which he puts two sugars and a bottle of coke. When the waitress comes with his espresso he asks for a glass and ice for his coke. Twice he leaves to smoke a packet-cigarette and stand in moody indifference in the cold. I think he’s running on stimulants. He sits opposite me purely out of necessity. When one of the tables next to the wall is free he ups and moves, the empty seat opposite unnoticed by me until a little while later, when the lack of body to fill it shocks me.

When I came in, I sat down next to the oddest situation. There were two tables set up against the wall, as usual, with two chairs for each so that the pattern went thus: Chair, table, chair, chair, table, chair. In the chair nearest to me and the chair furthest away two men are sitting, having a conversation over their two own tables and the two chairs between. Like two men who are allergic to each other they sit, 4-5 meters away from each other, and talk. They are obviously strangers, in conversation because of a freak observation or random event that linked them for a few minutes. But in my head the possible stories fold over each other like cards in a deck.

It’s a shame I didn’t get a sketch. I was sitting in totally the wrong position.

Shame about the mess of this one. However, this is the best face sketch I have ever done. The guy was sitting on the next seat over from me on the sofa, his laptop on his lap. His face was blank - that kind of relaxed concentration when your mind is on what's happening on the screen. He was completely concentrated on his laptop, sitting very still, so I found it easy to work on my sketch without him noticing. However, he must have been talking to someone on the laptop, because just as I was doing his mouth he suddenly moved and a little smile crept across his face and lifted the corners of his mouth and melted the blankness. I'm glad I got that smile in.

5th March

I don't know if any of the 'almost regulars' were there this week - I sat outside instead, in the sun.

There's a couple sitting a few feet away from me. As I walked towards the cafe a little while before, he was sitting alone. Sunglasses on, black hair and white shirt, watching me as I approached. Five minutes later, as I left the cafe with my drink to sit outside, there was his girl; a whispy blonde thing who fiddles with her gold bangles and always has a part of her body touching him, whether hand, foot, leg. He's on the phone right now, the hand holding the phone to his ear with it's elbow in the table top, blocking her out. She sits with one foot on his chair and watches him.



The ladies sitting at the table next to them look like old friends. They sit, cigarettes in between fingers, sunglasses hiding their eyes. The blonde talks - gesticulates - leaning forward while the brown in the red tartan coat leans back in her chair and comments. Her hair is dyed and wavy, her skin tanned. She seems almost bored. A power woman. When they go, they leave an ash tray of cigarette ends.

Early Feb

One of my class mates, of whom is placed in a perfect position, within the room, for my sketching and therefore has become one of my favourites to draw.

26th Feb

The woman who I sketched here last Friday is back. How delightful. This time she sits and eats her breakfast with a black-shirted man. Their conversation is earnest and she’s very pretty when she smiles. She looks more relaxed this week, in a black t-shirt and trainers.

The couple of elderly ladies who were sitting next to me earlier were discussing the antique fair I missed yesterday. One of them had the most heavy-gorgeous gold ring with red stones set along it. I complimented her on it and she smiled and said that it was not an expensive one, but that I was a “good girl. A good girl.”

Their space has now been taken by a couple of Uni students. Friends; she with a loud, girly laugh that compliments her pink and green flowered scarf and he who is playing a university sport game against a team of professionals called “The Penguins” next Tuesday. He has the build of a rugby player. Or possibly ice hockey.

A father had just come in with his pink-spotty-suited little girl in a pushchair. The bored looking business man sitting next to me with his laptop cracked a smile for the first time since he came in here. Now he’s distracted; even his checked shirt can’t hide the sudden paternal tendencies hiding behind his laptop screen and glasses. He glances over at the chuckling little girl and smiles again. He’s finding it hard to concentrate on his work. He mouths the words and points at the screen, his movements suddenly flamboyant in his attempts not to be distracted.

The father’s youngish, and this child is his first. He sits on the sofa with her on his lap and drinks his coffee while she rattles her toy and sucks at the rounded plastic. The waitresses lean over the chair back opposite to say hello and send delighted glances and meaningless cooings at his daughter. It’s funny how children can do that. She has the cutest smile.