Can't Buy Me Love

God knows I like my coffee. Actually my wife knew that too.

If you don't make espresso coffee yourself at home in any serious way (for example you use one of those pod machines instead of ground coffee) then you probably don't get the importance of a good coffee banger as part of your coffee making routine.

Now there is no end of these things on the market, small ones, big ones ... but because this is aimed at a 'boutique' market the prices are aimed at people who don't ask the prices.

Well that's not me!

Fundamentally I don't want (or need) what amounts to a bin for my used coffee beans to be a $100 item ... its a bin for crying out loud.

My wife shares my sense of thrift in this area and decided that she would make me one for my birthday.

Now this was a little while ago and my coffee banger has been banged on and filled with the used "coffee biscuits" (read this if you have no idea what a coffee biscuit is) many times. Accordingly it does not look like anything from a promo catalog now.

 Essentially my wife cut down a tin (which had something like pineapple in it) and put a stick through it to be a home made banger.

She chose well and picked a branch from the (god how I hate that plant) Bougainvillea in the back yard.

The thorn visible on the side of the branch is testimony to why I hated that plant (and then there is the spiders which seem to spontaneously generate in it) and the thickness (thinness) of the branch testimony to how tough it is (and also why I hated it).

My mother (God bless her well meaning heart) planted this nasty feral weed in the back yard and I've struggled to remove it for more than 15 years.

But I digress....

Its a bit difficult to see on this picture but there is a heart on the container as a decoration. Its difficult to see because I insisted it remain there and I covered the area with clear plastic tape to preserve the heart from coffee stains.

Wanting to share this with you today I removed the tape (which seems to have promoted some surface rust) to show you.

It proclaims what I already knew, that my coffee banger was made with love. I knew well that my darling Anita loved me, so it wasn't really needed for her to say that. But saying we loved each other to each other every day was something we did. It wasn't boring, it wasn't a hassle ... because we loved each other.

That she chose to invest some time and effort (instead of money) to make me a coffee banger rather than go and buy one is exactly part of the reason I loved her. Let me quote a Beatles song:

Say you don't need no diamond ring
And I'll be satisfied
Tell me that you want those kind of things
that money just can't buy
For I don't care too much for money
For money can't buy me love

Let me assure you that no money can buy me a better coffee banger.

But I did buy her a diamond ring, as her engagement ring, and the symbol to wear of my undying love for her. We spent many weeks looking far and wide (across many towns and a few countries) until we found a ring that was exactly what she wanted.

It had a softness of gold and a practicality that would allow her to wear it always without fear of the stone being damaged.

She is still wearing it today

My message today is "don't fukken worry about money, worry about the love you have". Treat it with the respect it deserves and foster it like the garden that grows the food that nourishes you.

Cos money can't buy you love.