For me it is a crucial litmus test.
More important than the marmite, vegemite thing.
I need coffee like desert needs the rain
Far more revealing than the lemon versus chocolate debate. I can even see the merits of both sides and argue both sides magnanimously, when it comes to the holiday in the snow versus the beach argument.
But there is one thing I cannot consider from the opposite point of view.
One crucial thing that comes between us.
I’ve tried to be accommodating. I’ve tried to be understanding. I have pulled my mind out, hung it on the washing line and beaten the dust of arguments past, out of it’s mindful pile, with a great big metaphorical stick. But my views are entrenched I fear. As much a part of the very fabric of myself, as my need for cuddles in the morning and oysters on my birthday.
He has also tried to be accommodating. It is compromise that keeps a marriage alive, and kicking. Not the big compromises, but the little daily ones. The repetitive little blighters that annoy the crap out of you when you’re tired and irritable and put shaving cream on your toothbrush instead of toothpaste.
Those ever present, but-you-wish-they-weren’t demands for compromise, for the sake of sanity and world peace.
He has tried. The perfect enabler he has quietly turned a blind eye to my need. As a desert needs the rain, so do I need it.
In the past I’ve earnt something of a bad reputation all because of my burning desire. (In more ways than one, I fear). My first delightful overnight no-pyjama party with the charming Secret Agent resulted in tears when he could not fulfill my demands the following morning. It’s true. I was very disappointed.
It’s just not how you treat a girl!
Of course I tried to be helpful. I put Secret Agent’s larder inadequacy down to his cultural sensibilities, (he was English too) and bought him a little gift that I left on the door step with a sweet little note. I did not realise, being so new to the dating as an older woman game, that this could be misinterpreted as stalking.
He called me the caffetiere stalker.
And I was ashamed.
Deeply ashamed of my addiction. Though perhaps surprisingly not ashamed of the ‘stalking’ moniker – after all stalking is just extreme perserverence isn’t it?
My Englishman will not get out of bed without it. It is the first thing he rasps for in the morning, when he returns home from a hard day at the coal face, and the one thing he must have at that time of the day when dinner is served and the hour is defined by chardonnay.
He spurns the chardonnay, the Pinot Gris, the warming Merlot, and has a cup of tea.
I cannot get my head around it. For me there is nothing as vital as the dark pleasure of a strong cup of espresso. Preferably made in a machine, under pressure where the life blood is squeezed out of the beans and extracted into a white cup. It fills me with great joy to see that virginal little cup sullied by the forces of caffeine darkness.
This is the one thing that comes between us, my Englishman and I. For me it’s coffee, for him it’s tea.
And never the twain shall meet.
Et tu Brute? Are you with me or not?
I know my mate Heather, the expat in Lapland cannot start the day without her cup of char, she’s even resorted to pulling out the camping stove in a power cut to ensure that she has her brew. I know the crowd I worked with in England were all determined to inflate their bladders with tea tinctures, and did not even provide a coffee machine for the sole coffee drinker (me!)
How delighted was I then, when I was contacted by http://www.dotcomgiftshop.com and asked if I would like a gift from their range of vintage mugs.
‘Oooooooh yes please said I’
Imagine how thrilled I was when I received a great big fat mug perfect for an entire long dark coffee. Thanks guys. At least someone understands my love of java.
It reads ‘I’m Usually Beautiful and Glamorous..but it’s my day off today!’
Quite.
And I haven’t yet finished my second cup of coffee.
What would you do for a decent cup of tea, or coffee in the morning?
