“Hey, there’s that great restaurant we went to five years ago, we should go again… Oh, it’s closed. I wonder why that was?”
There are many ways to take this scenario and find parallels in all aspects of life: that great local bike shop that you never go to, that magazine you love reading but never buy, that band whose albums you’ve always borrowed, never bought. Everyone knows that there are a million different things calling on your time and your money and you have to choose where to spend both. My local bike-friendly pub closed down this spring, not able to keep up with the ‘every pint is £2.50’ garishly lit, cheaply run place down the road. Had I known that it was about to go pop, I would have been happy to pay a premium on my well-kept pint of interesting beer as I sat next to the log fire. However, I didn’t read the warning signs as I just didn’t go there that often enough. And now I no longer have a pub at the bottom of my favourite descent – or in fact – a decent pub within a 20-minute walk.