I'll have mine with coffee, please - #107

The Friday market on the squares in front of the cathedral has a new attraction, and rather excellent it is too.

The City Fathers decreed - in their infinite wisdom and after a short period of consideration (only about 3 years and what's 3 years in the great scheme of things anyway - a blink of the eye..) - that the market should be blessed with a "Gourmet Corner".

Brigitte Müller-Dildei and Hans-Josef Schwarz run Caffea Moguntia in Bodenheim, a couple of km upriver from Mainz

They've got hold of a 1963 Citroen HY van - an apt and frequently used description is "the one that looks like a corrugated iron shed on wheels" - and done it up with a swish chocolaty-coffee paint job, fitted it out as a mobile cafe and park it on the market square on Fridays and Saturdays.

Fold down the counter, fire up the espresso machine and they're in business.

They roast their own coffee, which they also have for sale in their corrugated iron shed on wheels mobile cafe, so you can buy your coffee for home there and have anything from a cafe au lait to an iced coffee while you stand at the bistro table and watch the world go by.

It's great.

But I was a bit confused by my latte machiatto when it turned up on the counter. Looked a bit anaemic to me, to be honest.

"Ah" I said.

"That'll be a latte machiatto bianco then"

"Until I put the expresso in" she said kindly "Yes"

And - abracadabra - there it was. Just the way I thought it should look.

And very nice, too.