It seemed like everyone in the IT Department took advantage of today’s free hot drink offer from Costa Coffee.

Apparently this was a national promotion, so rush hour must have been fun for those driving home – surrounded by fellow motorists, completely off their tits on caffeine. Good luck sleeping tonight, people of Britain.

The local Tesco, which is the nearest supplier of this particular brand of beverage, was predictably busier than normal…

I didn’t brave the rain. Deciding instead, to stay in the office with my mobility scooter and usual coffee that I had brought in from home.

That was until a thoughtful colleague picked me up a mug of hot chocolate – all 100% gratis.

I didn’t have the best of starts to my Monday morning. We have a new coffee machine at work, so thought I would bring in some pods from home to use. I’ve been doing this all last week, and the machine was behaving itself well. That was until this morning, when I used THREE pods and only got, what can only be described as a single shot of coffee, instead of an entire mug.

Pod #1 – Chucked into the pod graveyard (the container in the coffee machine for used pods), without even a drop of water being passed through it.

Pod #2 – Enough to make an Espresso, even though it was not an Espresso pod!

Pod #3 – Went the way of Pod #1… chucked away, without being used. By the machine, may I add, not me!

This has made me very angry. The small amount of coffee has pacified me a little, but I will be returning for more coffee soon, although this time won’t be using the fancy machine that George Clooney advertises.

A little update on the coffee machine – I tried it again later in the day (after writing the above). The thing now leaks, and when I say leaks, I mean leaks like that incontinent old woman on Little Britain. Water went everywhere. I must have used half of a huge kitchen roll to clean it up, and given the fact I didn’t do anything to cause the leak (besides have the audacity to use the damn thing to make a cup of coffee), it’ll probably start spilling out water again! I’ve decided that from tomorrow morning, I’ll be going back to the good, old, water boiler. It may taste of lime scale, but it works! Oh, and no, I did not manage to get any coffee from the machine to accompany the leak!

There are three main non-work-related topics of discussion in the office. Football, family films from the 1980’s (The Flight of the Navigator being a particular favourite) and most recently, tea.

Like most offices all over the country ours is split into three different types of people – coffee drinkers, tea drinkers and those strange ones who don’t have anything hot. Up until recently, the tea drinkers were happy to live off PG Tips, Typhoo and when feeling adventurous, Tetley. However, recently strange varieties of tea have found their way onto the drinks shelf. Lady Gray, Chai and one called Assam (who I thought played for Liverpool) are just three I can recall from memory.

I have generally been a coffee drinker at work and steered clear of tea. However now all these exotic flavours have been made available, I’ve been tempted to drop the coffee granules for fancy tea bags. The other reason for this is because I recently bought a Nespresso coffee maker for the house. This makes truly amazing coffee and therefore renders all instant stuff, even the posh variety, awful.

The teas have certainly been interesting. Most notably a smoky one, which tastes like a pot of Tetley’s boiled on a barbecue. I drink that one under strict moderation. In fact, I’ve only had one cup. Something that smoky can’t be good for the lungs. The spicy, cinnamon flavours are my favourite.

All this foreign tea has upset the traditional tea drinkers, who for years having been content with the regular brands, now have to reach into any number of different tea boxes when making a round of hot drinks. I think the initial annoyance has finally calmed down, although I am tempted to bring in a ‘Teas of the World’ gift box from Whittards.