My Love for Little Coffee Shops

I have a thing about coffee shops. I always have done. It's my dream to one day own my own..hopefully in the gorgeous little village I've envisioned me and James living in one day ;)

There's something about them I find so relaxing. And I don't really mean the large coffee chains like Costa and Starbucks that are always busy and noisy, I mean the little ones. The ones that no-one knows about, the ones with the pretty decor tucked away somewhere and you come across them and feel really smug that no-one else knows about it.

Of course they're few and far between these days with small businesses dropping like flies but you still find the odd one if you really keep your eyes peeled. When I was doing my dissertation last year I found the perfect dainty and quiet little coffee where I could do my work and I ended up finding it to be the only place where ideas would flow. I couldn't concentrate at home or in the uni library, or the uni's coffee shops as the atmosphere just wasn't right but this little coffee shop was the perfect place for me.

Imagine my moment of heartbreak when I walked past it the other day to find it no longer there..just an empty building with boarded up windows! I actually felt a pang of guilt for not going in there since handing my dissertation in last year. I was probably single handedly keeping them in business with the amount of coffee I was buying in there haha. I mentally thanked the owners in my head as I walked past though! and  to be honest I so wish I'd thanked them in person for creating the perfect space for me at a time when I really needed it. I'm honestly not exaggurating when I say that the high mark I got in my dissertation was down to that coffee shop!

It makes me sad that it's not there anymore but it also makes me even more determined to have my own one day. And maybe my quaint little coffee shop will help someone else at some point in the future, you never know :)