I have a confession to make. I’m addicted to coffee. For over 20 years I’ve owned a Gaggia Espresso maker. I got so much use out of the original it died and I bought a replacement.

Even the new one ( 10 years old now)  was suffering from over use but I found a Gaggia service centre in Nottingham and a delightful engineer called Giacomo  picked up the machine and delivered it back to me as good as new.

Yes, you can see my obsession can’t you. Don’t judge me too harshly. Some people smoke or drink. I do neither. Some play the horses or gamble. I don’t. No, my singular addiction is good coffee.

This week I had a catastrophic upset (Yes, yes, I know. This may be insignificant and trivial to you, and in the current circumstances it probably is but…) when the handle on the coffee basket snapped off, making the machine unusable.
It was my own fault. I had put it in the dishwasher for years and the corrosive effect on the steel inside the handle had buggered it up.

Sue ordered another straight away – the sight of a geriatric addict crying in the kitchen was just too much for her obviously. It was supposed to be delivered by Royal mail yesterday. It didn’t come. I stopped the postman and asked if he knew anything about it. He didn’t but apologised for the bad service.

There was a ring on the doorbell very late in the afternoon. There stood the postman. He had discovered the parcel in the wrong bag after he had left this particular delivery walk. He had driven back to give me the package.

It’s very easy to criticise but today Royal Mail in general and our local postman in particular, delivered great service.

Here it is above. It’s been getting a bit of a hammering today.

My apologies if I sound like an overprivileged whiney old addict. I wont argue. I am, but  having been locked down for nearly 2 months now with the prospect of that going on for a very long time, and without coffee, well… need I say more.

Whiney, overprivileged old fart of a coffee addict, and yes, very grateful that’s all I have to worry about.

PDBarton, Lincoln UK. April 2020.