Black gold and productivity

Like most freelances, I live on my wits and coffee. I have my morning rituals and routines (essential for structuring one's day) and my pot of coffee is one of them. I usually brew up between 9 and 11am, depending on how my day will pan out. Having had tea first thing, I look forward to my coffee to get me through the morning spike.

Faced with a very heavy day today, I put the kettle on early and spooned some coffee into my cafetière. I was looking forward to a treat as I had decided to open my stash of Blue Mountain. I had a friend who was making regular trips to Jamaica at one point and he would always bring me back a couple of packets of this precious brew. I was down to my last 125g pack - I had some doubts when I opened it as it lacked aroma but I brewed up nonetheless. The resulting coffee was disappointing - it was thin and watery, didn't have that wonderful coffee smell and it tasted like wood shavings.

It pains me to admit, but I emptied the entire cafetière down the sink, and then the rest of the grounds in the canister went into the bin. So much for one of the world's most expensive coffees. I probably should have drunk it last year, but it was vacuum packed so it should have kept.

Fortunately, I still had coffee in the cupboard so I sit here now with a mugful of Columbian java, able at last to crack on with fuel beside me...

Wired

I had a very early start this morning as I was being collected at 7.15am to go off to a business networking meeting. Not just any old networking meeting, but a brand new one that I was helping to launch. The night before, I went to bed early and set my alarm clock for 6am. Naturally, I awoke at 4.30am and was unable to doze off again. So I got up, made my pot of tea and sat at the PC until it was time to get in the shower.

On arrival at our venue, I was delighted to see there was a large pot of fresh filter coffee waiting for us. As my eyeballs felt like they had been sandpapered, my body as if it had been hit by a Massey Ferguson and my brain like a bowl of custard, I poured myself a very large mug. I felt, in a word, shit. And I didn't even have the excuse of a hangover.

There was lots to do during set-up so I kept fuelling myself on caffeine. And then I drank more with my breakfast during the meeting. And more afterwards.

It was only when I arrived home at 11.30am, ready to do some paid work, that I realised I had drunk about 6 cups of the stuff. I felt completely hyper - even replying to emails was a marathon effort because my hands and brain were out of sync and I could feel my heart pounding inside my ribs. Emails sorted, I tried to work and realised I was in no state to do so.

This had everything to do with the fact that in around 3 hours I had drunk treble my normal weekly dose of coffee.

I abandoned all thoughts of constructive employment and surfed the net, played card games on my PC and read a novel instead.

Tomorrow, I'll play catch-up. If I can sleep tonight...