In Batemans Bay - and seemingly elsewhere - there are essentially only two types of shops left: empty shops and coffee shops. Some of the empty shops are in the process of being converted into coffee shops, and many of the coffee shops, judging by the level of custom, are once more becoming empty shops again.
When Australia was still a nation of tea-drinkers some forty or fifty years ago, the only tea-shop in town was run by the Country Women's Association where you were served a nice cuppa poured from a large pot and served in a real china cup, together with a delicious lamington.
Unlike today's obsession with more kinds of coffee than there are beans in a paper cup, as a tea-drinker you had two choices: BUSHELLS with or without milk, which you then sweetened with sugar poured from a sugar dispenser with a measuring spout on top. And you drank it sitting down!
Today there seems to be a coffee shop on every corner as well as at several places in between, and yet even those shops don't seem to be enough as you see people ambling along the footpath holding a paper cup of coffee in their hand. Indeed, it seems to have become almost compulsory to hold a paper cup of coffee in your hand before you may cross the road - to visit a coffee shop on the other side, no doubt.
For the sake of Australia's faltering economy, I'd be happy to buy a cup of coffee at a price equivalent to that of a Sunday roast at my favourite bowling club - what is a coffee shop's profit margin? 99.9% ? - if the coffee shop were as cosy and cute as the Reading Room Bookshop Café in Moruya where you could leaf through all their books before finally settling down with the one you wanted to read and have a nice cup of coffee and a lamington - and if you hadn't finished reading the book by closing time, you could buy it for a gold coin and take it home with you.
It was obviously run by someone who not only knew how to make a nice cup of coffee but also loved their books which is a most agreeable combination - although I still prefer my BUSHELLS - and I talked about this with Lee, the lifeguard who was watching over me as I was lolling in the 34-degree warm-water pool. "That was me and my wife", he cried.
The social-distancing requirements during COVID forced Lee and his wife Tay to change the Reading Room Bookshop Café from this vibrant place:
to this empty shell:
The last post on their facebook page reads "Thank you to everyone who made my little place so vibrant and joyful. All gone now but not forgotten. Keep reading. Keep telling stories. Keep spreading joy."
I shall keep spreading the story of the Reading Room Bookshop Café.
P.S. The Reading Room Bookshop Café in Moruya is now a fitness gym. Are we still the country where the tired old joke: "Let's buy them a book" - "No, they already have one", actually has some social basis?
