I was confused. I couldn't work out where the museum was. It must have been there somewhere. Light, spacious and glass-fronted, with stand-alone bookshelves, tallboy tables, free Wifi and sofas in the corner, Loudons was perhaps a little too comfortable for a museum cafe, but surely the lost treasures of ancient Babylon were in another building just around the corner somewhere, for what else would cause a beautiful place such as this to charge an eye-watering \u00a36.45 for a pot of rooibos tea and a slice of cheesecake? Cheesecake, I might add, which I had to plate up for myself.\n\nBut at Loudons, you pay for the experience. You pay for the space, the light, the ample seating. You pay for the large range of choice in cakes and yummery. You pay for the gloriously cheerful staff, who will take time out of their busy day to discuss the still-expanding Knitted Thing draped amply across your industrious companion's lap and pooling in lichen-like waves on the floor. You pay for the cheesecake so dense and flavoursome that a single slice fills you like a meal, and for those natty little strainer-teapots that hardly drip at all (why are these not compulsory in all tea situations? Why?). You pay for the joy of being able to find cafe with real personality even when you're not in the dead centre of town. You pay for somewhere that won't chivvy you along, even if all you want to do is sit and write a very long letter over a pot of tea at 2 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon.\n\nI'd go back, and I'd pay again.