These words came to mind when a small bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk was thrust into my hands from a pregnant colleague whose lust for the dark stuff knows few bounds.
As a devotee of the more enterprising flavours of chocolate in the cheaper stores I have been generous with my offerings to frantic staff as yet another test has to be marked.
I have introduced numerous disbelieving colleagues to the delights of dark chocolate with chilli and even darker chocolate with black pepper. The latest discovery was very dark chocolate with a “suggestion” of sea salt which I gave to pregnant colleague as a gift just to see her reaction. The mere suggestion that I might have such an exotic blend was enough to get the Cadbury’s bar; I can only imagine what her response will be when she actually pops a piece into her mouth.
It turns out that we have Monday and Tuesday off and she has taken the opportunity to book a flight back to raid Mothercare – I hope that she brings back a selection of the more notorious chocolate bars for which our country is justly famous.
I well remember the fury (probably whipped up by the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and other distasteful rags) when some obscure committee of the EC gave a pronouncement which decreed that all British “chocolate” did not contain a sufficient quantity of coco beans to deserve the title of chocolate and therefore had to be re-labelled as “chocolate type confection” or some such nonsense. Talk about straight bananas!
I prefer quality dark chocolate with coco content of 80% and above but who can deny the “potency” of a single square of Dairy Milk!
The taste is not that of a “chocolate type confection” but of childhood and comfort and security and memory and all the other soppy words that relate to something which is so much a part of you that it is hard to put into words. Dairy Milk is Proustian and no mistake!
The day seemed interminable with kids and teachers thinking only of the extra days that are to be added to the weekend to give us a mini break.
The weather looks awful, but we are relying on the eagerly believed delusion that Castelldefels has its own micro climate which might see some sun drying the tempests that have been forecast for the whole of the “holiday” period. I may have to adopt the unflinching approach to weather that I displayed during the less clement days of my highly expensive stays in Grand Canaria over the Christmas period. I can remember lying on my sun bed with more hope than heat on some days. On one particularly bad day I lay with gritted teeth during one rain shower thinking back to the innumerable assemblies to which “This too will pass” was the aphoristic highlight.
To be fair it always did and I was always able to march into the staff room in January with acceptably crisped arms and face!
I must remember that I still have the Fry and Bryson books to read which is a sure way of making me forget about the weather until a loo break forces me to consider the climatic reality with which I am surrounded.
Knowing that one has a four day break ahead gives an added impetus to one’s swim and I think that the first few lengths were completed with a richly languorous stroke which suggested space and time available more clearly than returning home and merely flopping into an armchair.
We had a meal out before which I was able to buy a new belt to replace the one which has served me faithfully (and is one of the few that can get round my waist) for many years. It was with a sort of regret that I threw it away in spite of the fact that it is out of shape; lacking some of the loops and has lost most of the surface sheen and looks frankly leprous. Belts are like dishcloths and are not to be thrown out unless some cataclysmic change occurs.
I also took the opportunity to lavish money on some eau de toilette which only needs a few squirts to achieve the required degree of opulent olfactory niceness rather than the stirrup pump which is needed for the cheap stuff which I have used lately. That is now gone and Chanel can now take its place!
The petty inconveniences of my day faded into insignificance after listening to a phone call from Paul about his week as headteacher in his new school. I do wonder how my colleagues would react if they had to teach in a school to which the police had to be called in to sort out disputes and restrain pupils and parents alike!
Still such thoughts will not sully the silky surface of my holiday mind as I read and study the sky for opportunistic breaks in the cloud!
I might even consider “tasks” if the weather is really bad!
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