There is an unrecognised sport that we Sevillians practise daily with Olympic mastery: crossing a city-centre street without brushing a single terrace chair. It requires balance, humility and a capacity for apology that diplomats would envy.
You set off across convinced there is room. Grave mistake. Between the table of those having toast with ham and the group already on their second beer at midday, there remains a corridor exactly the width of half a Sevillian. And you, who had breakfast, are a Sevillian and a half.
So you walk sideways, asking permission from people who don’t look at you, clutching your bag as if fording a river with your clothes held high. “Sorry, sorry, thanks, sorry,” you go, while the waiter passes through the same gap with a tray of six beers and apologises to no one, because he does know where he’s treading.
It’s not that one has anything against terraces. Heaven forbid: they are half the life of this city and the other half takes place on them. It’s just that sometimes, when you reach the other side of the street sweating and having apologised nine times, you wonder whether the pavement, that ancient thing people used to walk on, might also be a little bit yours. Then it passes, you sit down at a terrace and take up half the street with no remorse at all.
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