Smashing Birthday

The kids and I combined to buy Mrs Holt-Press a coffee maker for her birthday. She is quite partial to coffee. I've never had a cup in my life but The Heir and Favourite Daughter seemed to know what to look for and we chose a Sunbeam, in the lower end of the price range! They started at $150 and went up to $3000!!!!!
Come Saturday morning they decided to make her first cup of espresso on the whiz-bang cafe crema.
Sadly, things did not go to plan!
The filter handle would not rotate fully into place no matter how hard they tried. Thinking perhaps that was as far as it was meant to go, The Heir turned it on and next thing there was a loud noise followed by a crashing noise followed by a breaking noise followed by a swearing noise!
The pressure had blown the filter off, breaking the pottery mug underneath, and cutting The Heir's thumb in the process!
Coffee grounds splattered all over the kitchen.
Hardly an impressive or satisfactory beginning to their barista careers!

After cleaning up all the mess, and failing all attempts to get the filter handle into the correct position, we packed it all up and took it back to Hardly Normal's. They exchanged it without fuss but we did get the new one out of the box and check that it worked properly before accepting it.

Further hassles were encountered with the steam attachment for frothing the milk but we managed to solve them without another trip into town and finally, some three hours after receiving her birthday present, Mrs HP got to have a cup of coffee.

She said it was good.