Weird Things I do When I'm Writing

When I’m in a café or tearoom trying (hopefully) delicious foods and drink and writing about them, I often feel like I stick out a sore thumb. A girl sat alone in the corner scribbling away, sometimes I feel like everyone is staring at me! Thinking about what I must look from the outside, I can imagine that sometimes I might look just a little crazy, here are just a few examples:

1) I talk to myself

When I am writing, to make sure it makes sense and flows (to the best of my ability), I read it to myself under my breath.  Also, if I get distracted mid-sentence I have to go back and start from the beginning to pick up the flow of the again, so I often repeat myself too. The result is me, sat in the corner of a tearoom or café, hunched over a notebook mumbling to myself, I look like a crazy person!

2) I Stare Around

As well as the delicious food and drink in front of me I often write about the café itself, the chairs and tables, the way the menu is displayed and the general ambience of the place and even what the staff are wearing. I was once in a place that had some many pictures on the wall that I wanted to count them to find out just how many there were. Doing things like that can mean that staff stare and other customers wonder why I’m looking at their food. People give odd and sometimes even sad looks to the girl in the corner sitting alone and staring wistfully around.

3) Make ‘Yum’ faces

I can never be sure what I’m going to get with some places I visit and I am really a really fussy eater so when I am pleasantly surprised by a delicious meal I will scrunch up my face and go “mmm” quietly to myself. So now I’m the weird girl in the corner talking to herself and making faces(it’s a compliment really).

4) Take Pictures of my Food

It’s a thing nowadays to take pictures of your food and post it online with pride. I don’t normally do that unless its particularly impressive but when I’m writing about a new place I like to share my enthusiasm for the food, drink or décor with people by posting a picture on Twitter (@timeforteablog1) or Instagram (timeforteablog1) but however widespread taking pictures of your food may be now, you still get a lot of looks and tuts doing it in a nice tearoom.

5) Ask too many/weird questions

Occasionally, to help with my writing, I will drag an unfortunate waiter or waitress aside and ask them questions. They can be relatively normal questions, like “how many types of tea do you have?” or “why is this place called that?” or they can be slightly odd ones, like “what types of jam come with the toast” (when I am clearly eating cake) or “what year did this place open?” to a young waitress who has probably only been there a few weeks and has no idea! I hope that I come across as a curious customer and not a pest!

All in all I think I must look a bit strange when I’m concentration on my writing, sat alone in a place I’ve never been before and scribbling away, only stopping every so often to stare around and mutter to myself. The thing is, I focus on my writing and getting everything I notice down so much that I don’t think about it at the time.  Most importantly, I love what I’m doing and I can see myself carrying on for years to come!