The 5th & 6th; Still angry.
The 5th of August.
My eye is still angry. This morning, it was a bit better, but inflamed. I got dressed for the gym, because my plan was to go there, but I knew that might not happen - I wasn't going to go if it was going to make things worse.
As you may have gathered, I did not go. I spent my morning doing a blog post and researching coffee machines, and by the end of it, I had decided. Just not sensible. Our coffee machine has officially died, and we've had it six and a half years, so a new one is needed. We've ordered the one that Which? says is best, and happily it is on sale! It will be delivered tomorrow and no doubt I will have to spend a long time playing with it in order to make something good.
Because I wasn't going the gym, I did a little bit of exercise upstairs, then because my eye was feeling reasonable, I thought I'd try and do a bit of work for Sadie, as I haven't for the past few days. That was a bad idea, so I got to the end of 2013 and left to go and sit with the kittens. We watched the last two episodes of iZombie, and I will hold my review because Christine hasn't watched it yet. I did get rather stressed, but it was okay because I had my kitty friends. Blue is very keen on trying to eat my fingers. At one point, I had three out of four on my lap, with the fourth trying to get involved but not really being able to find a spot. There isn't really space for four when they're this big and they spread themselves out. A pile of warm floofers.
The 6th of August.
My eye has improved today - I am certainly in less pain this evening and I was able to go into town without employing my sunglasses or the visor (except while in the car because it was very sunny outside).
The reason we went into town was because when the new coffee machine was delivered this morning, it became apparent it was not going to be right for us. First of all, Daddy hated the colour, and secondly, when we tried to fit a cup underneath the portafilter, we found that the only one we could get in there was a Le Creuset espresso mug that I bought Daddy a few years ago. Obviously, that's not going to work. We need to be able to get other crockery underneath the portafilter. On that basis, we decided we were going to take it back to Debenhams, and see what else we could buy from an actual shop, because having looked online, it looked like most coffee machines were this same short height, and we needed to take my everyday mug with us to see if it would fit.
Mommy put a loaf of bread in the oven, went to Grandma's, and left me to look at what we were going to be able to buy. I ended up looking only in John Lewis, because any machines from Selfridges were either Nespresso (nope) or ridiculously expensive, the ones from Debenhams were the same, so it was to John Lewis I went. I read a lot of reviews, talked it through with Daddy, and we decided on a Sage the Duo Temp Pro. It was quite a bit more than we had planned on spending, but he feels that over time it will be worth it and frankly, from the options available, I was inclined to agree.
This afternoon, we had our trip into town. Thankfully, it was very straightforward! Took the first machine back to Debenhams, then went to John Lewis and tried to find the Sage machine we wanted. They had three on display, all of which were £450 or more, so we looked around some more. Found a Smeg one which had been very well reviewed, but that was enormous and over £300, so I checked the stock on the app and it said the Birmingham store had three of the Duo, but there were none to be seen! Eventually I found a member of staff, who was a bit confused, tried to convince us it was essentially the same as the more expensive ones (it's not), but in the end we all went to up to the Click & Collect area to find one of the three they had in the stock room. She returned with the box, and together we unpacked it and checked whether the mug would fit. It did, so the whole palaver was worth it!
Back home, Daddy and I got down to business setting it up. I won't talk you through the process because it is not at all interesting, but I have made a coffee (at about half past four so I will be awake a long time tonight) and I think I need to do some experimenting before I get it quite right. I have a lot more control now!
