Caffe Nero writer in residence series: Warming the butter

The world is mad but baristas remain amazing

It’s a cold but sunny morning in Caffe Nero and there’s a new regular with us today. Along with the older woman with curly red hair who reads The Times with her latte, the grizzled looking gilet wearing fellow on his laptop and the lady who watches TV shows on her phone and earphones over a teacake, we’ve been joined by a woman in her early forties, who curls up with a paperback in the corner. She, like me, is wearing headphones, and is engrossed. I can’t see what the book is (which is mildly upsetting, as I love to nose at other people’s reading material) but this is the third time I’ve seen her in here on a Saturday morning so she’s classed as a regular now.

I too have been book shopping, popping into the shop as I do in a spare moment and coming out with two new books (Clear by Carys Davies and Mona of the Manor by Armistead Maupin) and the third in a series I love (Dear Mrs Porter by AJ Pearce), which I read on my app but want a proper copy for the shelves. I also have two books to collect from the library so a busy reading day waits – but not until tomorrow because I will be watching rugby all afternoon.

There is a quiet comfort to the routine, the familiarity of this. With worse and worse news dominating headlines, these moments feel like we may go back and refer to them the way the First World War soldiers used to think of 1913. I mean, I’m exaggerating. But there is something of a ‘how can you sit by and watch this happen’ feel about a lot going on right now and I think it is this, these everyday moments that we do cherish, precisely for their mundanity, that are worth keeping.

“I’ve warmed the butter for you,” says the barista, (the one who calls everyone darling) as she brings me my toasted panettone.

Away from the news, sometimes you go through your day coming up against people, people who don’t do things like you do or who are oblivious to others or who just don’t care. Life is a series of small adjustments to cater to the whims of others. But sometimes you get a helping hand. It can make the biggest difference even for the smallest details.

Warming the butter on a cold day, to help spread it. Getting the butter into all the corners of toasted baked goods is incredibly important. This is salted butter and it gives just the right tangy accompaniment to the warm browned sweet bread, cinnamon and plump raisins. (I do recommend the Caffe Nero panettone, by the way, it’s excellent.)

Warming the butter says I see you and I understand. You’re here every Saturday to be alone and focus on your writing, or your newspaper, or your paperback and you want convenience.

Warming the butter says this may look like a basic job but I will make the best of it and do it to the best of my ability.

Warming the butter is how you can help acknowledge the bother of life and how you can make even the little things better.