The sky was overcast and it was drizzling when I woke up.
I woke up because of the school bells that marked the start of the new year of school for the primary children who attend the school just below my flat. Over the loudspeaker, I could hear the teacher giving instructions perhaps to the Primary 1 kids who are spending their first day at school.
Feeling really lazy and stuff, I brought my family over to Provence @ Holland Village for breakfast. I had a croissant and cheese onion bread with coffee while my wife enjoyed an egg toast with some tea (Earl Grey I reckon). It feels like I am at Starbucks but I am not.
At the nearby coffeeshop, Dan Fogelberg's Leader of the Band was playing and it sort of calmed me down. I tried to make sense of the madness that I have gone through in my 20 over years of life. Next year, I will hit the big 3-0 and it scares me to death.
I was just doing some people watching and it was entertaining in some sense to see who were the people who walked into Provence to grab a quick bite or to eat breakfast there.
A Japanese looking family was eating their breakfast at the table to my right. I thought they were japanese until they started speaking and I could tell that they were clearly Singaporeans.
Nevertheless, they looked pretty dignified. Husband, wife and daughter. The daughter looked like she was in her late twenties while both husband and wife seemed to be in their fifties or sixties. They spoke little but seemed like they were not in a hurry to get to work even though it was already 9 plus in the morning. Dressed in their office attire, they ate slowly, exchanged a few words here and there and left silently.
Next, a man in navy uniform stopped his car outside and rushed in to buy a quick bite. He was wearing a coat so I could not see his rank. He left as quickly as he arrived. He must have been late for work.
A white Porsche was the next to stop. Out came a woman in her mid forties to fifties. She certainly did not look glam and stuff. I remarked to my wife how common she looked for someone who was driving a Porsche. You would bump into her at the hawker centre and not figure that she drove such a posh car. I also told my wife about a woman who used to work in McDonald's all her life and actually had $500,000 of cold hard cash sitting in her bank account. These are the normal people in life who are actually really rich. (Next time you see a McDonald's auntie serving you coffee, she might actually be much richer than you )
A man wearing a standard Chartered marathon singlet was the next to drop by. He was with his two sons and it seemed that his son was perhaps "sick" as he mentioned about buying medicine later. Good excuse if you ask me cos he did not look sick at all. Perhaps he just needed some excuse to skip the first day of school for the year.
Different people from different walks of life. All finding some sort of comfort in this little bread shop. Some trying to escape their lives, some living up to their lives and some just getting on with their lives.
I live you with the lyrics of the Leader of the Band:
