The Grand Anse Craft & Spice Market. Another Grenadan day lopes leisurely into life. The excitable chatter of stall holders discussing nothing in particular brings to mind the gathering storm of the Election back home. A pair of brazen blackbirds mimic this scene as they flit in and out of the multi-coloured picnic benches on the search for scraps. On the beach, senior citizens stroll purposefully up and down for their early morning work out, fishermen wrestle with the tide, American students pound the sand at pace, brimming full of determination as locals, looking on in bewilderment, loll gently in the surf. A kindly looking gentleman, known to all as Doctor, does his rounds. Patrols of English cricket fans wobble up and down waiting for the bars to open and the Test Match to start.

I settle in at my favourite breakfast haunt, Doltrice’s. Doltrice does the best coffee on the Island. Instant coffee and condensed milk.

And that’s it. None of your Frappo-Maccha-Chocco-Cino-like nonsense so beloved of the big coffee corporations. Instant coffee and condensed milk. It’s the Blitz spirit here on the Spice Island, and despite its humble ingredients, the coffee is simply magnificent. A formidable woman, who by her deportment could only ever have been a cook, Doltrice has been running her roti shop in this prime spot for some time. As the lady herself tells us, no one does coffee like Doltrice.  

The problem, as I’ve discovered since Wednesday, is that it’s a job to know when our host is actually doing coffee like Doltrice. For, once again, Doltrice has taken the day off.

So, once again, Big Ralph in the hut next door comes to the rescue with the heartiest of welcomes but a lesser cup of coffee. A glutton for punishment, and a over-subscriber to the Hope That Kills You theory, I guess I’ll traipse loyally back to Doltrice’s tomorrow in search of this most mercurial of hosts and that most elusive of cups of coffee.

After all, the view’s not too bad….