Cafe review #1 Caffe Nero, Didsbury

Not sure what I was going to write then but here I am again, Sept 2012, and it's my new favourite place to come for coffee now I've found they do a one shot latte. The staff are lovely, friendly and helpful but efficient. The atmosphere, on a cold rainy Monday morning, is of quiet efficiency. Around me at least four people are quietly beavering away on laptops. As I arrived a couple with an iPad left the seat I am now sitting in, in the window a mum, or gran, is sitting with a trolley and a small child, another couple of mums have just come in, looking like they need shelter from the dismal weather - trolleys, raincoats, wet hair, lots of layers; a couple of men looking like they're doing a business deal, the man next to me treating his seat like an office, repeatedly on the phone trying to arrange things. Not one of the computer users around me has a drink on his table. I don't know how they have the nerve to sit there long after their drinks have finished, which surely they must have bought before they sat down? And another laptop user has arrived and for a moment I thought he'd had the cheek to take a seat without even attempting to buy a drink, still not sure whether he has. I'll carry on writing while I watch to see.
It has a buzz about the place, it's a place to be, it has a life about it, unlike the other places around. I've found the costa here to be colonised with young adults swapping outrageous stories.
I really must stop laughing. The man next to me, the phone one, has just received yet another call and has got up from his table to have a wander round the room while he takes the call. He's acting as though he is at home. He's gone to the window to look out of it while he scratches his head and talks to his caller. Is he afraid I'll steal his secrets? His business? It's really too funny. And the new chap really has sat down without ordering a drink and now he's making phone calls. It's very strange. Either they work for the company, although they're not talking to each other so I guess not, or they have an extreme lack of manners or shame. The one next to me is even using the shops electricity to power his laptop!
I still like it here, despite the growing feeling that I'm sitting in someone's office rather than a coffee bar. The furniture is nice, wooden chairs with padded seats, several armchairs dotted around in the window where you can sit and watch all the buses pulling up at the stop right outside. The dark wood of the chairs, and the slightly lighter wood of the floorboards gives it a luxury feel, sepia stylised pictures on the wall add to the atmosphere.  It also has a nice touch of some private alcoves at the back of the store, which may or may not be a further hive of activity, I daren't look, and I'm pleased to see that several of the workers have had the decency to get up and order some food, although they are only drinking water so far.  The Internet must be good here.
The music is another touch of class, I think. It's been a kind of lazy jazz, the Dinah Washington kind of music, and just then one of my favourite tunes from the Buena Vista Social Club came on, which made me feel at home. No I can't remember the tune's name, something in Spanish.
The Caffe Nero brand is so well known that, like Costa, all shops have the same decor but the atmosphere in this one is professional. Prices are the same everywhere and There's a nice range of food.
Overall it is a good place to come and feel that I belong, working away at my iPad. I could happily tuck myself up in a corner and type away without raising an eyebrow or feeling conspicuous. Parking is an issue so it's good on days when I get a bus pass, especially with the bus stop right outside the shop, although that does bring me down a bit, after sitting inside tapping away on the iPad, feeling well off, to standing in the rain outside feeling poor. One day...