It’s early in the morning, and the familiar tone of the alarm starts to go off, although I don’t hear it. I am dreaming some strange dream, often about why the one-kilo bags are stored differently in Colombia than others (!) or something to do with overtime in a chip shop being linked to the amount of beige food left in the glass-fronted cabinet. This alarm usually has a three in the title when Laura, my better half and business partner, is poking me to get out of bed and off to work. After a tired-eyed cup of lemon and hot water, I put my work boots on and head out the door to the roastery.

The beauty of this time of day, either by van or bike, is there are very few (if any) people around, making the short trip to the roastery even quicker. I arrive at this time of year; while it is still dark around 4:00 AM, my first job is to open up and ensure the roastery is a safe working space for the day.

Next, the roaster is on, and while it heats up, I will look through the list of coffees to roast for the day. There are usually eight awesome coffees to roast, taking me to approximately 8:15. While in the roastery, I top up the boxes for wholesale coffee and coffee subscriptions, clean the filters of the bagomatic 2000 and get everybody set for the day.

Next comes coffee to drink, and the rules of the game here mean that if you make yourself a coffee, you must offer the team, too (and quite rightfully so; we are a friendly bunch!) While the roaster is cooling, I like to nip out to drop Felix off at school. The work-life balance is a bit mixed for me here 🙂 But this is the most important part of my day. #goteamdad.

Upon return for breakfast time where I always have raisins on cereal because it reminds me of pirate cereal, like little bits of treasure sprinkled all over, topped up with some lovely barista edition oat milk. Nom nom nom. Following breakfast, I will look to clear up and possibly push the hoover around before I look to cup any coffees either from the day or new coffees coming through at that time of year. These could be new seasonal coffees, such as our Christmas limited edition coffee or a long-standing coffee that is just running short.

Depending on the day, it might be time to see a wholesale coffee customer to set up an espresso machine or to train on a particular machine for new or existing staff. Around now, I’d squeeze in a bit of lunch either by way of a sandwich made with homemade bread while out and about or back at the roastery with our infamous cheese toastie machine.

Late afternoon usually is office time to excitingly pay any bills along with other computer-based tasks such as responding to my fanmail (:-)), general emails and ad hoc tasks before it’s time to head home as we have six chickens we look after. Felix (now home from school) and I will check to see if they’ve laid any eggs before we give them fresh water and top up their food, maybe with a little snack. Did you know that chickens like watermelon?!?

A spot of tea will usually follow, and then our two darling children to bath before they have stories and milk (always two stories). After they have fallen asleep to dream about the overtime available at the chip shop, it’s time to check on the chickens to see if they are all sleeping. When it gets dark, they head inside to roost. Did you know that? Five will be asleep on their perch, whereas I always have to lift one off the rattan chair onto the perch—always the same one, too, Felix’s fave, Luvvy.

And lastly, it’s stripy pyjama time, followed by reading a few pages of the most recent book our action coach has set as homework before I’m off to the land of nod myself, for a few hours at least.