The dog café had a pretty pink sign describing its many services and I stood outside it mesmerised as I realised what it was.
This was not a café where dogs were allowed. This was a café for dogs. I peeked inside and there were dog baskets for the customers to lounge in as they drank their puppuccinos.
There are so many things about Britain that are too subtle for me when I re-enter the atmosphere as an expat
My friend and I were on our way to dinner on the Fulham Road and we ended up standing by this café as I stared with my mouth open and asked her repeatedly how this could be.
There are so many things about Britain that are too subtle for me now when I re-enter the atmosphere as an expat. This café could be explained by calling it doggy daycare, in that it invites owners to drop their pooches off to be minded for a charge unspecified.
But that cannot explain all the dog baskets and beanbags on the floor, which give one to understand that the dogs aren’t being crated out the back like a boarding kennels. They’re being invited to kick back and relax in the café, surrounded by little signs about their feelings.
If you filled a café full of barking dogs in rural Ireland, they’d call the men in white coats. They wouldn’t just load up all the dogs and take them away, they’d take you away.
I was at my local supermarket a few weeks ago when a dog jumped up on one of the ladies who works there and nipped her on the nose. It didn’t leave a mark, but she later told me that the owner took the dog straight away to have him put down, which might mean the vet’s but more probably meant she took him back to the farm where her husband shot it.
The truth is, I’m mostly bored rigid living in cattle country, but I love the backwardness of it, the lack of sensitivity, and the fact that no one has any idea what any new-fangled nonsense is about. They couldn’t care less about human feelings, never mind the feelings of dogs.
It’s like going back in time to when every-thing made more sense, even if it was a bit rough around the edges, and you couldn’t get a puppuccino for your cockapoo for love nor money.
The dog café in London had a sign advertising a service whereby children could come and interact with the dogs at ‘pooch petting’ sessions which cost £20 for 45 minutes. (Why not an hour? Maybe the children were more likely to get eaten if it went on for an hour.)
Inside the brasserie, having dinner with my friend, I marvelled as the waiters kept putting large brown paper bags on the bar. My friend had to explain to me that these were takeaways of chicken Milanese and truffle fries to be taken by motorbike to people who didn’t want to leave their homes to eat restaurant food.
I shook my head in amazement. How terrible, I said. But also, how fantastic, I thought. We can’t get any kind of food delivery in rural Ireland, and the only takeaway takes so long to get to and get back with that it’s not worth trying. Most hauntingly, there is no such thing as a kebab. The nearest kebab – courtesy of a person of an origin who can cook a kebab – is an hour and a half away.
The next evening, while I was out for dinner alone, a waitress who didn’t understand what ‘table for one’ meant took my order by getting me to point at what I wanted on the menu then searching for the same word on an iPad she was holding.
‘Steeeeak?’ she said puzzled, then found the word on the iPad. As I sat there, I noticed a blackboard sign by the open fire saying: ‘Don’t touch the fire.’ And a red chalk drawing of flames depicted the adjacent real flames you were advised not to touch.
When I went to the ladies, a sign on the back of the loo door told me that if I was on a date that was ‘not working out’, I could go up to the bar and ask for Angela and that would act as a code word so they would know I was in trouble and needed rescuing.
If you filled a café full of barking dogs in rural Ireland, they’d call the men in white coats
‘Does it all feel a bit weird?’ asked the poster. Yes, I thought, yes it does.
The entire experience of visiting London was surreal, because it was nice to be able to have what I wanted for a change even while being bombarded with nonsense. It left me feeling very conflicted.
If you’re fed up with the UK and are thinking of moving to a more rural and remote place, then I’m not sure what to tell you. I’m not absolutely convinced on these trips to London that I’ve done the right thing by leaving. You can have anything you want in England, even though it’s becoming a very strange place.
Where I went to live in a fit of pique you can’t have much of anything. No one cares if you want to reach into a fire and touch the flames. No one gives a toss if you’re on a date with someone you don’t much fancy. The social opportunities of dogs are routinely discounted.
Most importantly – and I cannot stress this enough, because I wish someone had warned me – you cannot get a kebab.
So if you are going to miss any of those things to any urgent degree, it’s probably best you don’t leave England.
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