Parrot Café

The Café Of Your Very Dreams is a little more humid this week. The demure and merely decorative pot plants that last week set off the classy decor have...grown. Lush and verdant leafy sprays wave gently underneath the ceiling fans, and Amazon parrots, mixed with conures and macaws scratch, scrape and flit amongst the growing wooden rafters. I'll take this opportunity to point out a minor mistake in Pirates of the Caribbean...parrot shit is not white, but green, but that doesn't stop it bleaching your clothes. Thankfully there is a natural canopy of vegetation forming somewhere above our heads, so falling guano shouldn't put us off today. Not that the parrots are alone in being the only wildlife lurking around in here...

Come in, sit down, chill out, bask in the tropical heat, slip off that third vest and relax. Sink into a sofa with a muffin.
Why not? In this café, everything is easy and the café provides everything.

I'll just prepare the Uberpercolator for today's drinks...Brazilian cocoa in here, tapping the grind down level in there, hmmm. 'Insert Sustainably Grown Mahogany 4 by 2 Here'. Ours is not to reason why...in it goes...
A little more attention to the compartments that have sprung up for today's orders...sugar, blimey...four bags. Check. I'll just stick my head round the door and make sure that the cow in the kitchen is suitably hooked up, and we'll be off...

Right. Button pushing time.

WELL JUST OUT OF INTEREST, I'VE GOT MY PHONE SORTED OUT NOW, BUT I STILL THINK THAT 'NOT AN ERROR. YOU SHOULD NOT BE SEEING THIS MESSAGE' RATES QUITE HIGHLY ON THE COMEDY front -ah. The whistle goes, all is ready.

What have we here...?

First up is in fact S, who dropped in a little late last week asking for a traditional coffee and a chocolate biscuit...and of course the chocolate was grown in Brazil. Fairtrade, obviously.

Karen dropped by and asked in a lilting Spanish for a large espresso, ground over the waters of the Panama Canal, between the hulls of two container ships refusing to let the other go first. Enjoy, Senorita - just shift that monkey off the chair. He's asleep so he won't notice. The carpet...oh, er, well, it used to be a carpet...is quite soft.

Gh travelled home via the wonders of South West Trains this morning, and understandably wants something to warm him up. Even more understandably he asks for a hot and steaming Colombian. So, fresh from a brisk couple of laps around the frosty playing fields is Ana Sofia, looking beautifully rosy cheeked and she's certainly steaming. I hope you can work out the whole body heat sharing thing, Mr. Hamster. Have a coffee as well while you're at it.

Now, here...well, it's a coffee, but conspicuously without any fruitbat fillets. That must be in some way significant, no? Gordon, this one is yours. That's a python, not a draught excluder. Ye-es. Best leave him where he is. There's no shortage of chairs, old boy...

Two small sticks, lovingly smoothed and sanded...and made from the finest mahogany...to be wedged between the eyelids of Dave. Don't look at me. You got what you asked for - I just push the button on the bloody machine. Here. Have a coffee as well. Latte, if that's okay. What with all these espressos, I've got to give the cow something to do...

Huzzah! More milk has been used, this time for Shiv's Caramel Latte. Hot, brown, creamy and halfmade of thick syrup, my dear. Hope that's okay. Oops. Careful, mind the jaguar. He's an old softy really.

Una Cerioca for querida K...a little more mellow than your average espresso, but smoother because of it, I understand.

So, enjoy your drinks/sticks/biscuits/South American models, people, and tuck into the quadruple chocolate muffins.