Supporting local businesses

We were in Caerleon this afternoon - a small tourist-orientated town that has worked hard to promote the ethos of supporting local businesses, and which has tried (with limited success) to keep the large chain retailers out.

So at 3:45 we decided to have a cup of coffee. We went into a locally-owned independent coffee shop, and were told that unfortunately they close at 4pm and had already cleaned their expresso machine so would not be serving any more coffee today.

Oh well....try another independent coffee shop just up the road. It was 3:55 as we got to that one and as I approached the door a young girl closed and locked it in front of me. No word. No apology. Although she could not have failed to see me she did not acknowledge me in any way.

There is one more independent coffee shop in another street, and when we got there we found that it had closed at 3:30!

So we drove to Cwmbran, about 6 miles away, and went to Starbuck's. They were open until 7pm. So much for supporting local businesses.