I realised something mildly worrying this week.
There is now a café in Ibiza where I don’t need to order. I just turn up.
I walk in, sit down, and within about thirty seconds a coffee appears. No words exchanged. No menu involved. Just quiet, efficient recognition.
This should feel nice.
Instead it feels like evidence.
Because once a café knows your order, it means you’ve been there way too many times.
The place isn’t anything special to look at. Small terrace, four metal tables, one of those slightly crooked awnings that flaps in the wind when a scooter goes past too quickly. But it’s close to the office, and more importantly it opens early enough that you can pretend the day is under control instead of feeling you are skiving.
The first time I went there the waiter (a fairly surly Spanish type) asked the usual questions.
Coffee?
Yes.
Milk?
Yes.
Toast?
Maybe.
Nothing memorable. Just another café stop in a town that has roughly twelve thousand cafés doing roughly the same thing.
But over the months a pattern developed.
I started arriving at about the same time each morning. Sometimes after the school run, sometimes before heading into work, occasionally just because the house was noisy and the twins had discovered a new hobby involving being too damned noisy.
After a while the waiter simply stopped asking any questions.
One morning he just brought the coffee.
I assumed it was coincidence.
The next day it happened again.
Then the toast appeared too.
At that point I realised my routine had become visible to another human being.
Which is slightly unsettling.
There’s something about being recognised that makes you suddenly aware of your habits. You start wondering what else people have noticed don’t you.
The fact I sit at the same table. Every day.
The fact I check my phone about ten times before the coffee arrives.
The fact that some mornings I look like I’ve sbeen dragged through a hedge backwards because someone small decided that 5:30am was the perfect time to wake up.
Leo came with me once during the school holidays.
He looked around the café for about twenty seconds before announcing, “You come here a lot.”
I said I didn’t.
At which point the waiter arrived with my coffee without asking.
Leo just raised his eyebrows.
Teenagers don’t need to say anything when they know they’ve won an argument. They are very good at it.
The funny thing is that routines creep up on you without asking.
You think you’re living a flexible life. Running a business, juggling family chaos, trying to stay vaguely organised.
But slowly, quietly, little habits form around the edges.
The same café.
The same coffee.
The same chair.
And eventually someone behind a counter knows exactly what you’re going to order before you open your mouth.
Which is comforting in a strange way.
Although I’m fairly sure Leo now believes his father is the kind of man who has a designated coffee location, a fixed breakfast order, and a life that runs with suspiciously predictable timing. Basically dull.
He’s not entirely wrong.