I'm starting to think of Wild & Wood - possibly my favourite coffeehouse in London - as my Central Perk, a place where you can just go to and relax, or meet up with friends, and quite a few other people there know who you are. In short, the coffee shop equivalent of Cheers.

Case in point: I'd decided to go there because it's one of the best places I know of when it comes to just getting a great cup of coffee and catching up on reading. My arrival was greeted with both pleasure and surprise by owners Kit and Bozena. They were happy to see me as I hadn't been there in a month, but, at the same time, they were surprised as I'd just missed one of their regulars by about 15 minutes, namely, CG. Ah well, such is life, but I wasn't too sad. All I'd wanted was a cappuccino and a nice slice of cake (the lemon and poppy seed cake from Clarke's was wonderful, and I don't even like lemon, and the cappuccino was excellent, as usual) and to begin on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (oh how I love my local library). Instead, I ended up having a nice chat with Kit and Bozena about how I'd been, how they'd been and all that kind of thing for about an hour and a half, when, lo and behold, who should appear but CG himself?

And it was nice to see him. It really was great to just catch up for a half hour or so, but, during that time, I was thinking, ah crap, how on earth does the mere appearance of this guy just make my heart beat that much quicker? I do fancy him, yes. I think I would mind telling him that, irrespective of the fact that I'm not a complete novice when it comes to dating. But I am trying my very hardest to write him off, because, rationally speaking, there are so many factors which just wouldn't work. And, unlike the naive fool that I was a year ago, I'm not exactly of the view that love conquers all anymore. In any case, it's not even remotely close to love, it's just a crush, albeit one that's hard to shake off.

So even though I met someone else later that day who ended up coming along with me as my guest to a friend's party that same night even though we'd only just met, and a someone else who isn't bad looking and has a great sense of humour and is older than I am (therefore, one would assume the issues inherent with dating someone younger ought not to be as prevalent), at the end of the night, on my night bus journey home alone, I found myself still thinking of CG.

Damn.