Coffee to go

Friday February 6th 2009
Coffee to go

This morning didn’t get off to a good start. I woke up feeling stiff and sore as a result of the slow struggle to get back into boot camp – quite frightening how quickly you lose fitness with a steady diet of indulgence, drink and good times over Christmas and the Australian summer holidays. I have a fairly standard routine on weekday mornings. I get up just before 6am and either go to boot camp or else take the dog for a walk. On the way back from these worthy activities I then stop off at the local shops to get bread for breakfast, and all the paraphernalia needed for my imaginative take on packed lunches – rolls and ham. The most essential part of the morning routine though, is my large skimmed latte, which I buy from the café with possibly the slowest service in the world. To be fair this is probably because at that time in the morning, 7 am, it is packed with 3 categories of people, a) tradesmen getting their caffeine fix and limbering up before a morning’s work, b) cyclists and keep fit addicts clad in lycra, (Even when I am coming back from boot camp I don’t count in this category as I am still wearing my very unflattering tracksuit bottoms rather than summoning up the nerve to move out of this protective covering into lycra shorts) and c) harassed looking parents, generally fathers, trying to insert toast and hot chocolate into small children before school. In between ordering my coffee and it arriving I generally have time to stroll down to the bakery, gaze at the florist shop, inspect the offerings in the lingerie shop window and wonder how practical a red and black bra would be beneath my boring white shirts. However the coffee when it arrives is generally worth the wait, I relish the first sip and it sets me up nicely for the mental and physical rigours of getting three children, husband and myself off to school and work.

Anyway back to the morning tragedy. I came out of the coffee shop, clutching my cup and spotted an acquaintance on the other side of the street. Perked up by my first gulp of life reviving nectar I waved with an enthusiasm and embarked on a shouted conversation across the road, both moves I must add that would have had all the girls cringing as they find my desire to speak to people in the street, let alone shout at them excruciatingly embarrassing. On this occasion they were proved right as engrossed in our conversation I walked straight into a pole and dropped my coffee. Needless to say it wasn’t the looking like a berk in front of male acquaintance and numerous tradies all sitting at the tables watching this slapstick, or the potential black eye that I am now eyeing in the mirror at five minute intervals that upset me, but the pool of frothy liquid at my feet.

I regret to say that I am such a morning coffee addict that having come home and burst into tears on Simon, delayed shock obviously and to be honest the heat, I dropped him at the bus and promptly shot into yet another of my regular coffee haunts for a replacement cup to ensure I faced the rest of the day with equanimity.