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What one hand taketh away, the other giveth
I know it's backwards, but it's apt.
Anyone who knows me for more than approximately 5 minutes knows that I have a slight obsession with coffee. Imagine my horror yesterday when I went to my favourite cafe after my hols and found they've switched to poxy evil vacuum-packed Vittoria coffee. Waurgh! Unknowingly, I'd ordered my usual short black with great anticipation, and got a thin acidic travesty of a coffee. When the waiter came out to ask if everything was ok, I mentioned the coffee wasn't up to their usual quality, and he told me then that the brand had changed. And that most people so far preferred the Vittoria. If they prefer thin "French roast" tasteless crap, well, they're bloody welcome to it.
I was was feeling quite miserable about the loss of one of my most consistent pleasures in life right now (the other being food, sadly enough), when I fetched up in Kingston - a suburb about 15 minutes' drive from where I live - for lunch today. I tripped over a cafe called Kingston Grind, and, taking my courage into both hands, ordered a short black. It was fantastic - best coffee I've had in Australia (people tell me there's great coffee in Sydney and Melbourne, but I haven't found it yet). It's apparently their own blend, and was brewed perfectly, with a nice crema and not in the slightest overheated. It was a dark roast with an almost berryish flavour and had a pleasantly charred aftertaste. Perfect, in fact. Shame it's not just down the road from me, like Gus', but hell, I'm happy to go for a nice wee drive for that kind of oral pleaure.
Yay!! And after that I hit the local SF/detective bookshop that I've been meaning to go to for ages, Gaslight Books, and finally bought Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell since I've heard rave reviews about it, and it hasn't come anywhere near the public library (which, to be frank, is crap. Wellington, which is the same size city, has nearly twice the number of holdings as Canberra) - so, I've bought it, sight unseen, which is something I hardly ever do for non-secondhand books. And, and, they had The Summer Queen (Joan Vinge) in exactly the edition (large format paperback, pretty cover) I wanted. Double yay! Much juicy reading tonight, then!
Anyone who knows me for more than approximately 5 minutes knows that I have a slight obsession with coffee. Imagine my horror yesterday when I went to my favourite cafe after my hols and found they've switched to poxy evil vacuum-packed Vittoria coffee. Waurgh! Unknowingly, I'd ordered my usual short black with great anticipation, and got a thin acidic travesty of a coffee. When the waiter came out to ask if everything was ok, I mentioned the coffee wasn't up to their usual quality, and he told me then that the brand had changed. And that most people so far preferred the Vittoria. If they prefer thin "French roast" tasteless crap, well, they're bloody welcome to it.
I was was feeling quite miserable about the loss of one of my most consistent pleasures in life right now (the other being food, sadly enough), when I fetched up in Kingston - a suburb about 15 minutes' drive from where I live - for lunch today. I tripped over a cafe called Kingston Grind, and, taking my courage into both hands, ordered a short black. It was fantastic - best coffee I've had in Australia (people tell me there's great coffee in Sydney and Melbourne, but I haven't found it yet). It's apparently their own blend, and was brewed perfectly, with a nice crema and not in the slightest overheated. It was a dark roast with an almost berryish flavour and had a pleasantly charred aftertaste. Perfect, in fact. Shame it's not just down the road from me, like Gus', but hell, I'm happy to go for a nice wee drive for that kind of oral pleaure.
Yay!! And after that I hit the local SF/detective bookshop that I've been meaning to go to for ages, Gaslight Books, and finally bought Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell since I've heard rave reviews about it, and it hasn't come anywhere near the public library (which, to be frank, is crap. Wellington, which is the same size city, has nearly twice the number of holdings as Canberra) - so, I've bought it, sight unseen, which is something I hardly ever do for non-secondhand books. And, and, they had The Summer Queen (Joan Vinge) in exactly the edition (large format paperback, pretty cover) I wanted. Double yay! Much juicy reading tonight, then!
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It sounds like you'll have lots of reading for *many* nights; enjoy!