Tim Dowling: I’ve got a secret plan to level out the back garden using only coffee grounds

As long as I don't tell them about it, it needn't be a success

It is early morning and I am sitting in the kitchen before anyone else has had a chance to use it, drinking coffee, reading headlines and being quiet. The only sound is the noise of the tortoise trying to force himself through the cat flap, and the cat itself, which is sitting on the worktop, wanting cat food and getting none.

Noel," it says.