Hexed & Floored

Part 1

I’ve been feeling hexed and floored, but probably not for the reasons you think. Hexed, because I think we all feel a little cursed at the moment, for Covid reasons. Floored, not because I’m feeling tired or run-down, but I am.

Before Lockdown I used to go to bars and cafes, we all did. I miss being in bars, finding new people, trying new tastes, food or alcohol. I even missed the décor, the floors especially. Because that’s what I’d be looking at when I went to knitting groups and writing circles, poetry evenings or quiz nights.

Floors of those places can tell you a lot. When I was much, much younger I hung around dingy pubs, who’s floors were often wooden and sticky. Café floors are usually swept clean in the later opening hours, collecting all those crumbs and coffee spills.

Bars in old banks and chapels were a love of mine, even though some of those buildings were Weatherspoon’s. Each one was uniquely carpeted, but they still had the same stains among the garish patterns.

Then there are the brewery bars, half brewery, half bar. The cutest is a tiny one in Whitby, a stone’s throw from the exposed Abbey on the cliff-top. But I can’t go that far now.

Even the next nearest one at Saltaire is too far on a bus for someone like me who is still isolating. The Salt at Saltaire is beautiful from the tram lines of the floor outside, to the neon signs in the brewery behind the bar, all built inside an old tram depot.

Part of the floor is tiled in hexagons and even some of the armchairs have beautiful gold and blue geometric patterns on them. I couldn’t leave without taking some photographs to use as inspiration for a new Cowl project. I even photographed the toilet floor, without noticing.

This is why I was hexed and floored.