Charlotte Howells is well and truly hooked...
Before I get around to writing this post for you, can you just hang on a second, because I'd like to go and get some coffee. Sorry, let me rephrase that, I need to go and get some coffee.
It hasn't always been this way. There was a time, before I spent my whole day crafting words and re-jigging pictures, when I actually thought coffee was the enemy. Imagine that. Now, I need coffee to start my day, break up my day, restart my day after lunch, and generally get me through my day. Oh coffee, you make me very happy...
Not so long ago, I was an innocent non-caffeinated student. I actually got through a whole degree with not more than a few tastes of coffee bean. When I did succumb to a cup of java, it was a nightmare. Me being totally un-dependant on caffeine at this time, I was also extremely sensitive to it. One cup and I was up all night, and cartwheeling (literally, I'm sorry to add) around all day like a hyperactive lunatic.
The problems started when I discovered Diet Coke. I say 'discovered', but really I started buying it in bulk because I was on a certain diet and Diet Coke was listed as zero points. Diet heaven, basically. So, newly converted to Diet Coke, I started drinking it in times when I needed energy, and fast. After a particularly tiring trip to the snow dome (it's a seven hour round trip but I need my other fix - snowboarding - even more than I need coffee) I gulped down a bottle of coke followed by a huge mug of coffee to give me a boost.
Wow.
I could ride harder, jump higher, and keep going much longer. From here, it was downhill for me, uphill for sales of Nescafe and Illy. I rapidly started turning from an occasional coffee sipper to a seasoned gulper, and not just for sport.
My working day starts with me carrying a over-sized steaming mug of coffee to my desk, and happily sipping away until I feel awake and buzzing. To start with, that would last me all day, but slowly I needed a top up at lunchtime...then mid morning...then mid afternoon. And now, I'm a full fledged coffee addict, grinning ear to ear after a caffeine fix, and suffering from shaky hands when I've overdone it.
For now, coffee is my friend, but I'm weary of letting it go too far. The woman I know who drinks it extra-strength by the cafetiere-full and talks at approximately 100mph is my inspiration to stay at less than three of my mega-mugs a day. Even if I do keep topping up the teaspoon-fulls in each one. There's also the cautionary tale learnt from my friend Joe, he who went to hospital with caffeine overdose after a cafe-crawl spanning a day. He had his stomach pumped and lived to tell the tale, but I guess it proves that nothing is good in excess, not even my friend coffee.
Charlotte Howells writes at double the speed for Kiss and Makeup and Nollie once she's had her daily cuppa or three.
