Sitting here with a glass of red wine and the lights low firmly grasping my imaginary life rewind button I recall the Gondolier (fondly nicknamed the Gorgonzola) Coffee bar a favourite haunt of the Art College students and an evening destination  for Gina and I. The new craze for ”Frothy Coffee” and Ham and Tomato Baguettes were seen as cutting edge cuisine. Usually there were a couple of guitarists strumming away and singing in the far corner.  Some were good and some not so good but nobody ever criticized it was after all part of the Gondolier’s charm and ambience.

The only people to object to the Gondolier were the tutors at the IpswichArtCollege and then only because so many students included pencil sketches, charcoal and chalk sketches, even paintings in water colours and oils of the interior of their favourite haunt.. So many in fact that further studies of the interior of the coffee bar were banned.

Outside stood against the pavement a whole line of bicycles with not a lock and chain between them. Things were much simpler then.

Many an evening was spent in good company putting the world to rights whilst delighting in each other’s company. Would that I could remember more maybe in time I will.