MORNING COFFEE

I love that first cup of coffee in the morning. Even though I drink coffee throughout the day, that first cup is always the best. It has to be real coffee, in a big cup, and very strong, with milk but no sugar. One of the best decisions I have made in my life (along with the outsize shower head) was to put on my Christmas wish list one of those espresso or mocha coffee pots, the ones where the water in the bottom boils up through the ground coffee and into the top compartment.

Given that I am a Brit and my wife is Danish, it is perhaps surprising that I drink coffee in the morning and my wife drinks tea. I like tea at teatime; and I have taken to drinking it late at night. But in the morning, it has to be coffee.

I am reminded of all this because my trusted coffee pot has got a crack in it, so the water trickles out of the bottom. I went to the local "Isenkram", which otherwise tends to sell everything, but they don't have them. So I'll have to use a cafetiere tomorrow morning. OK, but not quite the same.

Walter Blotscher