Meet up for coffee

Happy Christmas time - let’s go out for coffee. One of today’s society’s addictions.

Once it was going to the pub and mainly for men and men after work but these days this addiction has become hugely popular particularly for men and women of the older generation.

With all addictions there has to be a cause or an excuse or a reason and this one is partly because of the challenges retirees face when adjusting to their new lifetyle.

There are always two major adjustments to make - first instead of the rushing to get to work on time and then the must does, must bees, must haves - the importance of our contribution, the satisfaction of well doneness, the pressures now there is the stillness of an empty day.

The second adjustment is even more inevitable - the partner we lived with all day, every day has gone too and the silence of the home becomes oppressive.

So, coffee shops in Warragul and every town care and cater for these needs and have become amazingly popular - to challenge the stillness and silence they are alive and vibrant with noise and chatter and the movement of people moving and mixing and sharing the same satisfactions.

It has become a weekly habit for many - even more - sometimes, some meet two or three times a week with different people or even daily for the coffee and a friendly chat.

Coffee is cheap $4 to $5 as standard price cappuccino, flat white, long black, latte etc. And the informality is another plus you don’t have to make appointments, get all dressed up be careful who you ask or didn’t ask.

And one can meet someone anyone friend even foe on the street and say let’s go for a coffee simple, short and fast.

No one ever mentions that it is the friendly chat that is the main attraction.

Sometimes the chats can get serious and the problems of the world are discussed and often solved better than politicians can manage.

Another plus is the business side. There are many coffee shops in Warragul in fact in every town everywhere so their impact on the economy is good.

They are a good market for the farming industry - milk is a main ingredient of each coffee and jobs for a good number of people and teenagers learn fine social skills waiting on customers.

Now Christmas holiday time is here with that extra time for ‘going out for a coffee’ and a great time catching up.

Dawn Gough, Warragul