A little bit of Chocolate and Love

So we all know I've been a bit miserable of late.  A bit uninspired. And more than a bit prone to curling up on the sofa and sobbing until I've bored myself stupid with the sound of my own patheticness.

But, fear not.  I'm planning on putting an end to it very soon.

Besides, there's only so many times you can pretend that your watery eyes and swollen lids are because your contact lenses are playing up before someone starts to suspect the real reason you look like you've seen better days.

Sooooooo, imagine my complete and utter unadulterated delight when I opened an e-mail from Fuel My Blog a few weeks ago, asking whether I'd be interested in reviewing the 'highest quality chocolate that money can buy'.

Now I may be miserable, but I certainly am not stupid.

It had my name written all over it.

Because

• (a) I need to get back to blogging.
• (b) I NEED some chocolate.
• (c) I AM chocolate queen.

I mean, who else decides to eat chocolate every day for nine months during their pregnancy because they've read one article which states that chocolate makes for happy babies?  And who else is sent eight Mars Delights in the post by their Mother and eats them all in one sitting?  And as my husband says, only you can eat chocolate for breakfast, lunch and supper and not feel bad about it.  Well ok, you AND your Father.

What can I say?  There's a sweet tooth gene deep in my DNA.

So, having established my credentials and having let you in on a little bit of the background, you can imagine just how I was feeling when that parcel dropped through the door.

Desperate? 

Just a little bit.

Did it matter that it was two days after Easter and I had already had my year's fill of the brown stuff?

Maybe.  But I refuse to be weighed down by irrelevancies.

The fact remains...I tore that package open like I'd been starved of chocolate for a year.  Two years.  More even.  I could smell it through the fibres of plastic wrapping and jiffy bubble wrap.

All those evenings of crying myself to sleep would be undone in an instant.  The moment that chocolate passed my lips, happiness would be mine.

I could feel it.

I emptied the bars onto the floor in front of me.

One, two, three, four, five bars of chocolate.

But hold on.

Organic dark chocolate.

Organic extra dark chocolate.

Organic extra dark chocolate with natural orange oil.

RAW chocolate.

Another organic extra dark chocolate.

I peered inside the package.  Nothing else remained.  I tipped it upside down for good measure and shook.  Hard.

FOR FUCK'S SAKE.  WHERE'S THE MILK CHOCOLATE?

I may be the chocolate queen, but I'm the chocolate queen who doesn't like dark chocolate.

At all.

Ever.

The disappointment was palpable.

I could have cried.  I think maybe I did.  Organic dark chocolate bars may even have been thrown across the room.  And then I went into the kitchen and found solace in the form of my Lindt rabbit.

So what's left to say?  Well, I did of course attempt to eat it.  Tastes change over the years.  Or so they say.  Unfortunately, not in my case.

I still hate dark chocolate.

Organic or not.

Chocolate and Love or Terry's All Gold.

'Tis the same to me.

But all is not lost, Chocolate and Love.  You see, I had the ladies over.  Ladies who love dark chocolate.  I couldn't let it go to waste now could I?

And this is what they said.

Waxy, smooth, good without being too much, but not as good as Hotel Chocolat.

So 'not great, great then'? I asked.  'Well that's a shame', I said, 'because I have all these bars and they'll only be thrown in the bin.'

Needless to say, when  the ladies who love dark chocolate left for the night, there were no bars remaining.

Which is just as well.  Because I had my Lindt rabbit for company.