Coco and the cow in the tree

On the way to the Williamstown ferry, I stopped to get a five dollar pie at Dinkum pies and was greeted by two women with the very cheeriest of smiles. Williamstown?....My parents were married in Williamstown, in a cafe, said the younger of the two, who I correctly took for a trainee. Coco, 19 (well actually, twenty in a  month) was born in Melbourne to an Australian dad and a South American mum. She worked last year as an au pair for a French/Belgian family in London, staying with them in Greenwich, a place she loved. She will shortly be starting a training in nursing/ midwifery. But for now she says she loves the pie shop.

Coco's boss is Natasha, 31, who says she likes to give customers the kind of welcome she'd like to receive. She told me that Australians are friendly. This was not national pride boasting , for Natasha is from New Zealand. She has been here a year and a day. I was particularly intrigued by a tattoo of  an all-black airliner on her upper arm, pointing down towards her elbow - and almost like an Aboriginal bird image? As Coco talked, Natasha kept a tactful but supervising distance, moving stacks of chairs in off the street; casting occasional smiles, especially when Coco gets most passionate.

Coco made conversation as she tidied the cafe up for the 3p.m. closing, which is normal with the company (I didn't ask why). Have you seen the cow in the tree?  I wished Natsha would show me it, but knew she was closing to go to an appointment.

Coco's dad would know what this is all about and who designed it, as he is an urban designer, she told me. As I drank my coffee I asked if she'd mind being my blog subject for the day, and then she jumped on to the stool opposite me and told me what makes her tick.

Coco is a Dr Who fan. She really knows her stuff. It wasn't that Matt Smith was a bad Dr, it is that Steven Moffatt's writing wasn't very good that series. She loves the Weeping Angels, and she tells me that fans believe that when Dr Who eventually dies he will become one of those angels. It isn't an official back-story, she explains. She starts to lose me at this point. It is something she called Head story, or it isn't the Head story; I am not quite sure what that is all about. Coco clearly does, though. And she likes fan fiction, but doesn't write it. Are you my mummy? - we say in sync - Jinx! (and Coco is now scared of gasmasks - and Natasha says it all scares her; she doesn't watch).  And Coco is mad about Daleks.