Nespresso Essenza Mini

#smilingontheinside – Thursday 10 July 2025

Never say never. Right…? Yesterday my Nespresso Essenza Mini arrived all bright and early – just when a cup of coffee should be. I saved the unboxing until Alan got home later that morning.

Why the Essenza Mini…?

Because I was being super-indulgent – this was for the van – not for home – it needed to be small. Space is at a premium. I had the choice of black or white; I chose black.

Why black…? Because I’m sick of white plastic yellowing. Our Fujitsu heatpump isn’t that many years old and it’s already starting to yellow. I didn’t want that with this.

Since this was my first order, it came with a gift pack of a few sample coffees. I’m probably going to stick to my Jed’s X – supermarket bought – but who knows…? Maybe there’ll be another flavour that I like equally as much.

YouTube Required

Who would’ve thunked you have to initialise a coffee machine before you use it…? Yup! Actually, it’s not initialising, it’s cleaning. Three times. So I did that. I don’t very often read manuals or how-to-start instructions… but for some reason I did… I’m pleased for the Divine Intervention in this case.

Lungo Just Fits My Little Cup

I have a couple of little white bone china coffee cups >>hot drinks always taste better in bone china<<. I thought they were about 100ml but had never measured them. Looks like they’re 80ml as that’s what a Lungo size coffee is. Phew! I was getting ready to do some mopping up but it stopped just in time and the magic of surface tension kept the liquid in the cup.

Boiling Water First

One of the reasons – apart from the waste – that I haven’t been a great lover of Nespresso coffee particularly, and cafe coffee generally, is because they’re never hot enough! Yup – I know they probably produce optimally flavoured coffee, but to me, they always feel cold.

Today I added boiling (almost) water to the reservoir. I heated my cup with boiling water as I usually do first. The end result was a hot cup of coffee. #smilingontheinside

Next time I’ll use cold water – as it recommends – and will see how that turns out. We’ll see. Watch this space.

Lunch With A Special Friend

Every 4-6 weeks a very special friend and I catch up for lunch. Yesterday was that day. We met at Ethos on Morrinsville Road. The parking is plentiful and the food is good. They have a great selection of gluten free options.

We went international: Japanese and Indian.

These lunches always have me #smilingontheinside… they’re more stitches sewn into my ordinary life that make it extra-ordinary… I’m blessed.

Diminishing Returns – Stepping

I made noises yesterday about the fact I was beginning to think that stepping 5x/week was getting to the stage of diminishing returns.

Yesterday – although only a 6x repeat day – I noticed I was dragging my feet and my trekking poles more than usual. I was obviously tired.

I need to make sure I don’t over-train – been there, done that. Over-training isn’t just a physical condition, it’s mental as well. If I allow myself to get to the point of over-training I know I’m likely to throw it all away.

I’ve obviously caught my toe on the previous step on my ascends before – not lifting my leg out and up enough as I take the next step. I’ve wondered how I ended up with dirty toes… yesterday I found out how this happened.

My Thursday 10 July in Pictures

The Weather in My World on Thursday 10 July 2025

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Here’s to having special friends in your life…

Here’s to no having no coffee grinds to clean up when we’re away…

Here’s to more stitches sewn into my ordinary life to make it extra-ordinary.

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Here’s to SmilingOnTheInside!