Coffee, anyone?

10:30 pm. The barbeque has gone cold but we are still outside on a rare balmy June evening. I check how many people want tea and how many coffee and come inside to get the kettle and the filter coffee maker going.

I fill up the jug from the cold tap and start to tip the water it carefully into the coffee maker. But almost straight away there is a curious gushing noise. Odd, thinks I.

(What happens next is, for the most part, due to my not having bothered to put on the kitchen light and hardly at all due to the minuscule quantity of beer that I have consumed during the evening.)

It isn't until I see a tsunami of water rushing across the worktop that I actually stop pouring and think "That's odd! Did I completely miss the opening for the water on the top of the coffee-maker?"

I grab the tea towel to stem the flow. This is clearly going to form an incomplete barrier so I pull open the tea towel drawer and yank out another two.

I peer into the coffee-maker. It's dark but I can make out a reflection part-way down - there does appear to be some water in it. So why won't it fill up properly? The jug is still, perhaps, one-third full so - not one to give up once I've started a task - I carefully pour in the rest of the jug.

Which results in the tsunami exhibiting a second wave.

More tea towels. In fact I'm now feeling around in the bottom of the drawer in some desperation and finding ancient tea towels I haven't seen for years.

Obviously the machine has developed a leak somehow. Not wanting any electrical accidents I unplug it and move it across the kitchen out of the way. After wringing out the tea towels I eventually manage to dry the worktop. It will have to be instant coffee.

Back outside I wait for a lull in the conversation to inform C discreetly that there won't be any filter coffee because the coffee maker is kaput and doesn't hold water any more.

She responds with "But I told you I'd filled it already!".