Coffee is my catnip

It is only very seldom that one catches one's postie sniffing your parcel before he hands it over and makes you sign for it but this is what he did this morning - and that can mean only one thing: post for the Coffee Fairy Fox!!!

Our kitchen here is a wonderful place - messy but never food-poisoning inducing, and equipped to the nines with all things sharp, all things stainless steel; every permutation of pot, pan, strainer and drainer; herbs in abundance, exotic spices by the dozen, and mugs decorated with Moomintrolls.

There is, however, one corner, by the fridge, that above all holds captive the attention of our visitors (see entry 19): the coffee corner, home, not only of Jeri the giraffe, but also the Coffee Fairy Fox. We've not seen her (feel free to email me with a picture though) but we know she's there, benevolent, doting thing that she is.

Here, in coffee corner, the merest touch of an unmarked button makes machinery lurch into life, makes it gurgle, wheeze, grind, growl, clack, bubble a cofee into existence. No-one knows quite how this is done: clearly, though, it is some kind of alchemy, some kind of wizardry, the nature of which we may never discern but darkly.

This morning's rare sighting of CFF's post brings us a small step closer to that unknowable truth, and I am humbled by even an imagined glimpse of that grander vision.