The Coffeeholic and the Cafe by Elizabeth Martin

On her living room floor in the middle of the day while flicking through a newspaper, Claire has a revelation about her life. She is a Coffeeholic and she doesn’t care.

What follows is a series of adventures that seem too funny to be true; Claire moves to far north Queensland to help open and run what is to be the best coffee shop in Queensland. After lying—that is, fudging some of the facts—on her resume Clair lands the job and embarks on the journey of a lifetime.

Her new boss Maria starts off a treat but ends up being very dismissive and her son Daniel is a mamma’s boy who seems to love nothing more than sitting around in his underwear watching TV. There’s also Bruce, the farm hand that Claire thinks is too attractive for his name so she calls him Tom.

The Coffeeholic is a fat paced and funny novel that is very enjoyable to read. Sometimes Claire is a tad annoying but because the book is from her point of view you can see why she does the things that she does. She is too self-centred for me to say she could be a friend, but she is definitely the person you want around when you’re going for a coffee.

Martin writes quite well and this is a good first book. Her description of Far North Queensland is so beautiful that it makes me want to jump on a train to head up.

This isn’t the best book that you will ever read but it’s very enjoyable and you will get a laugh or two from it. 

Let me know if you're read any good books lately or you have a different opinion on this one. 

Kathy

Themes: Coffee, I love coffee, Elizabeth Martin, The Coffeeholic and the Cafe, book review,

Coffee machine (BEDA #30)

Me: Have you heard about the new member of the family?
Room mate: Oh Zeppy's sister had the baby!!!
Me: Oh no, I meant the coffee machine

I got it folks, yeah *fist pump* Confirmation letter said to call if we didn't hear by the 30th so yesterday at 9:01 am (coz no one likes to be annoyed when they first get into work at 9) I called Gloria Jeans head office and they said that the Cooly store has the machine and that I should call them. When I did, I found out that the store was recently purchased and this new owner wasn't told anything about the competition; they didn't even know why the machine was there!


M and I headed down and after a couple of false starts we left with the machine, the grinder, the voucher booklet, and a new coffee. The plan was to make a coffee right away but we hit a couple of snags, the worst of which being that we couldn't get the machine to work! The manual says (as does common sense) that if you've never used the machine before you should put it thru a rinse, but every time we tried the machine would make a sound like it thought that it was doing something, but nothing would happen. The information booklet is pretty straight forward but it doesn't have any troubleshooting tips at the back, and the website is kind of useless. It wasn't until I was bored with work that I thought of an idea---and it worked!

See the black handle sticking out of the machine:

It's not level with the machine but actually at an angle. It says to pull securely and I guess that means to pull until it feels like you'll break it and then it will work. Here are some more photos

Me hugging the machine :)

Swirly in the froth

The drip try kind of looks like a Cyberman... with acne

Let me know if you have any cool coffee recipies, or any other competitions that I can win haha.

Kathy

What are the odds? (BEDA #19)

For those of us in Aussie land, there is a coffee chain called Gloria Jeans that is quite extensive. I'm not sure how it compares with other chains around the world, but GJ's does well over here by focusing on coffee and the environment of their stores. For instance, there is always a comfortable seat at their locations, and free wi-fi at most stores. Recently they were running a competition along with the 7 Network on behalf of the new series 'Amazing Race Australia' which is just as it sounds. To help promote the show they were offering free coffee's, an at home coffee pack, and a trip for two to Hawaii. All entrants had to do was purchase two coffees or a bag of nuts and text off a special code (along with their name and address).

Cut to last month when my relatives from Perth decided that they want to live in the Gold Coast. According to their flight schedule, their plane was to arrive at 7:30 am, which meant that I would have to leave home at around twenty to seven to pick up my mum and sister and get to the airport in time to collect the rest of my brood. I checked the flight times before I left home (I love the Internet) and saw that the flight had been delayed by around 20 minutes due to a late take off. When I arrived to get my mum and sister I checked the times again and they had changed-the flight was now running on time! We left quickly and made it to the airport two or three minutes before the plane was due to land but there was a catch: it had landed five minutes previously! WTF! We met them at baggage claim and discussed breakfast plans since the original plans of meeting them at the gate and eating with them there had obviously fallen through. Lucky, I had an idea: Gloria Jeans!

The closest was located next to a McDonald's so la familia could get a caffeine and sugar rush to make it through the rest of the day. In total, that day I bought six drinks and got three entries. I entered once in my name and once in the name of each of my friends who also wanted to go to Hawaii.

Flash forward to two days ago when I get a text from Gloria Jeans: I won the coffee pack!! *insert flailing happy dance here*. The package contains one of these beauties

as well as a coffee grinder:

AND a years supply of coffee! All up, the total prize value is over $1,100 AUS.

Today, the confirmation and information letter came, addressed to my friend. By some odd twist of fate it wasn't any of the other 45 (forty-frakin-five) other coffees from our usual GJ's that won us the prize, but those five that were bought on the day that I wasn't even going to go to Gloria Jeans.

What are the odds?

Has anything like this ever happened to you? Have you been lucky enough to win a prize or had what you thought was a bad event turn into something good? Let me know in the comments.

Kathy

Themes: Gloria Jeans, Coffee, Sunbeam, coffee machine, coffee grinder, I love coffee
Links: www.gloriajeanscoffees.com.au, www.sunbeam.com.au