IAN McMILLAN Out and about exploring our favourite haunts

WHO’S that ghost, misted as a piece of frosted glass, haunting the edge of that café somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales? Who’s that phantom in the seat by the window, gazing out at the small town square, the tiny espresso cup halfway to his lips, the remains of a toasted teacake on his plate in a scattering of crumbs?

Who’s that man who seems to be blending in with café’s décor, so that sometimes you see him and sometimes you don’t?

Why, that ghost, that phantom, that spirit, that wraith (and I don’t mean Elsie Wraith, the old post lady who used to bring my dad parcels of feathers for the trout and salmon flies he tied in the conservatory) is me, and the woman with me is my wife, and we’re doing our favourite thing, haunting cafés across the three Ridings because we’re on our holidays and, frankly, there’s nothing better to do.

Some people lounge by the pool all day; I lounge by an espresso all day. Well, that’s not strictly true; I lounge by several espressos because I like to flit between cafés and I don’t like to think I’m outstaying my welcome.

Haunting is perhaps a strong word for what we do when we’re away from home; haunting suggests something a bit scary or a bit disturbing and our haunting is, I hope, nothing of the sort.

If we’re ghosts we’re benign ghosts, not the kind you encounter in horror films. We’re the kind of ghosts who will hold the café door open for you if you feel a bit flustered, the kind of ghosts who point out to fellow customers that they’ve dropped their flat caps on the floor and indeed they help to pick the flat caps up and resist the temptation to try the caps on.

One at a time, of course; no point wearing three caps. Unless you’ve got three heads.

That previous couple of sentences seem to go off at a tangent away from the main thrust of this column, but for me that’s the joy of sitting in a café watching the world go by; tangents are the best places, indeed the only places, to go off at.

One dictionary definition of haunting is ‘having qualities, such as or beauty, that linger in the memory’ and that’s as good a way as any to approach my haunting of cafés on my holidays; I may be haunting the place, but the place is certainly haunting me. I sit and the taste of the espresso hangs around in the mind, reminding me of other espressos in other places in other times; the toasted teacake takes its place in my memory next to all those other toasted teacakes I’ve ever eaten.

No wonder I’ve got so many crumbs down my jumper.

The view out of the café window reminds me of other views I’ve seen over the years and those people walking by bring to mind people I went to school with, or people I sat next to on a bus or a train once.

The gentle rain is the same gentle rain I saw last year from the window of a different establishment, and the busker’s song haunts the street in the same way that this corner table and I are haunting each other.

I drain my espresso. My wife finishes her latté. My tiny cup clinks as I put it on the tiny saucer.

Time to move on; so many cafés, so little time, so much haunting to do before we have to go home…