When all is quiet...

Whew...what a couple of weeks...

I've been very busy making coffee...

The ABC Open Garden scheme came to our town and several gardens in the district were invited to open. One of the gardens is just two doors down from the bakery cafe where I work. My employers were approached to do coffee and light refreshments for visitors over the two days. Reluctantly they agreed.

So, a commitment was made to purchase a smaller coffee machine that would do the job. I was enlisted to research the right machine for us and I only had a week and a half to get it! A big call and by Friday, the day before we were meant to be at the open garden, my boss and I were wondering if we were even going to be making coffee! Well, at the last hour, it seemed, the delivery truck backed into the driveway at the rear of the shop and we unloaded a rather large box.

We were the new owners of a brand new machine. It was kind of exciting and when we took it out and put it on the bench, were in awe of all the shiny bits that greeted us!

The weekend went well, it wasn't too hard sitting around a garden for two days. We made a few more coffees than we'd expected and sold quite a few of the Portugese Custard Tarts and Lemon Poppyseed Muffins that we'd made as well.

The following Friday, the community was holding a Relay for Life, a huge charity event for the Cancer Council that involves teams of people walking a large circular track for eighteen hours straight. Of course, we were there to keep them all awake with coffee!

Over the period of fifteen hours we sold over 240 coffees and hot chocolates. We left tea for someone else to take care of. I was busy enough with the coffee! I had a laugh when I had at least two people ask for the "chocolate biscuits" I had. They weren't chocolate and would have tasted more like sour coffee! People thought that my coffee pucks were biscuits. Actually, a bit of a compliment really as it was nice to see that when I did knock the puck out of the portafilter, they stayed a whole "biscuit". That is what could be seen in the knockbox, so I could forgive the uninitiated for thinking they were edible.

Anyway, its been nearly three weeks of mostly work and finished with a weekend of three days off. Which made for a pleasant change...