The festival, awkwardly, was on at the other end of town - in the Business Design Centre, in Islington. I've never been to this particular place before, so I left it to Helen to organise. We took the Tube to Angel, checked a map, and headed right on the main road. Our venue was to be on the other side of the road, so we crossed - and passed some of the best buskers I've heard in a while. Obviously the place to go for good free music! From the map, we'd seen that the venue is beside a Hilton and a car park, so we kept an eye out for those - and indeed, as soon as we saw a Parking sign, that was the approach to the venue. No problem at all.
On entering, we were directed to the rear of the lobby, where we handed in our tickets and got our hands date-stamped. We then headed upstairs to the exhibition area. It's an attractive building, not that big. Neither is the exhibition - but by the end, we concluded that there is a terrific amount of variety, certainly enough to maintain our interest, but the exhibition is not so large that we were drained and incapable of seeing everything there. We had an organised plan to do a reconnaissance trail around the stands first, then return when we'd decided what we wanted.
Most of the stands obligingly had free samples. :-) We saw several varieties of fudge, we saw marshmallow bars, we saw drinking chocolate. We saw chocolate truffle Christmas trees and chocolate Christmas tree baubles. There was artistic chocolate:
We saw innumerable chocolate bars - some flavours familiar, many much less so! There were unusual teas. There was a stand for Bailey's Chocolat Luxe. There was toffee-flavoured vodka, which I found a bit sickly. There was a stand selling wine to accompany chocolate - and a stand selling knives. (?) The Cats' Protection League showed up again - prolific, these people! The New York Times had a stand advertising subscriptions. There was an exhibition area to the side, where shows seemed to run continually - which we ignored. Just as well - reading the programme just now, I discovered that they charged for them! There were jewellery stands. There was also a Lush spa, as well as a place you could get your nails done - and twice, we were solicited by people on one stand who wanted to straighten our hair!
After all that, and the numerous well meaning souls who were determined to teach us the origins and ethics of chocolate, we were in a bit of a chocolate daze, and decided to take a break and have a cold drink - there was a fridge to the side. They sold Champagne too, but we weren't in the mood. A couple of cold soft drinks and a sit-down restored us mightily, and we forayed out to purchase the best of what we'd seen.
So we came home with honey-flavoured and dark chocolate bars, with drinking chocolate with real chocolate flakes, with chocolate-covered marshmallow bars. We got several varieties of fudge, some truffle Christmas trees, apple and cinnamon-flavoured chocolates, fruity chocolate, and boxes of miniature chocolate bars. Our bags were stuffed - even though I forgot to get Turkish Delight for my mother. Never mind, I'm sure I'll source some! The festival also runs tomorrow, Saturday.
We made the long trek back to mine, and went out for a meal to my local Chinese. Helen had heard me say such nice things about it that she decided she had to try it. I'm delighted to say she wasn't disappointed!
I was thinking about the aforementioned A Christmas Tail - Weirdos Alternative Panto for tomorrow night - I'd have gone on Tuesday, but then I didn't. Well, as is my wont, I checked the website a short while ago to see how it was selling - and am I glad I did! I got literally the last ticket.
After that, I'm booked up right until I go back to Ireland for Christmas. On Sunday, I'm going to something quite close - John Cleese is touring to promote his new book, and appears in Cadogan Hall. On Monday, I'm going to Erasure in The Forum in Kentish Town. Pity - ShowFilmFirst just told me I won a pair of tickets to The Woman in Black: Angel of Death the same night, and I would've liked to go to that! And I can't even seem to get a taker for the tickets. Well, I saw Erasure once before, and they were great - so not so bad!
On Tuesday, I'm also double-booked, but I think I can make both. I've booked for a concert by Polyphony, whose work I love, in Temple Church as part of the Temple Winter Festival. And then I discovered that one of our colleagues is having leaving drinks that night! Again, I guess I can stay for one. On Wednesday, I managed to get a place on a Christmas Lights walk - I'd love to find some I hadn't known about! I was trying to get a place on one of the walks for tomorrow, but they were sold out.
On Thursday, we have our company Christmas party - same venue as last year, Painshill Conservatory. The theme this year is 1989, as that's the year the company was founded, and it's the 25th anniversary. Should be fun! I just hope that (a) we don't have the coach disaster we had last year - we have changed bus companies: and (b) they've improved the wine, which was like dishwater last year. And I'm no wine snob!
On Friday, I fly back to Ireland for Christmas, hoping that I've remembered all the presents, cards, and wrapping paper. Then it's into the Christmas flurry, added to by the fact that I'm supposed to be meeting all those old friends again over Christmas that I met in October. For Christmas dinner this year, we're headed to the Oakwood Arms.
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