A Sweet Affair...

Hello and welcome back to my blog; I honestly need to get better and keeping to an acceptable time frame when putting these posts up, but I promise I'm working on it! So today's focal point ties in to my personal development and career aspirations of owning my own business; and one of the crucial parts of it is having diversity. Anyone that knows me quite well, understands my deep connection and definite addiction to a certain cocoa based product and thus, a day trip with one of my closest friends was birthed. We decided to meet halfway and attend a Chocolate Workshop in the heart of Nottingham which meant getting up at essentially the crack of dawn and getting myself to the Interchange to grab a train down (27 and still no car!). However, I was met by a rather apathetically apologetic gentleman who advised me that there were train strikes and the train I was pre-booked on wouldn't be showing up meaning my connection to Nottingham would be delayed. I can not count the number of times I've been frustrated and let down by the British Transport system, but considering I was already severely sleep deprived and had wet hair, I honestly didn't want to hear this first thing in the morning. I was also advised that the strikes had been repeatedly announced at the station and that I should have been aware of these strikes and taken it into account for my journey.

Loving my new red locks

Now one major flaw in that argument is that unless you already use the trains and/or read the news, you probably wouldn't be aware of these strikes and sadly I fell into the Venn Diagram of both these factors; so would be classed as doubly screwed! It was an option of Taxi at my expense or the bus, so I chanced a late bus with a non-refundable ticket in my pocket; and boy have I never run so fast from one side of town to a station without a word of a lie pouncing on the train with the doors closing 1 second later…I could feel the air of the doors as they closed, but luckily East Coast trains are more reliable than Northern Rail. So onward my journey went and was relatively boring until my changeover happened. Luckily for me, there was only one changeover to get myself to Nottingham, and one thing I've realised, is that it's not just West Yorkshire that have to deal with 40 year old trains…

At some point you'd think the Brits would simply say enough is enough and strike until decent trains are put on the tracks…Britain really is in some regards still the poor man of Europe.

This is a beautiful place to walk along and like Leeds has it's own Canal.

It'd been a while since I got to visit the "Midlands!? so trying to navigate around Nottingham when not driving is quite hard; however just like Leeds, Nottingham has a ridiculous one way system so travelling about other than on foot is positively murderous. I found my way a little cafe called "Hungry Pumpkin" (38 High Pavement, Nottingham NG1 1HN, UK) which was just up the road from the Police Museum where we would be taking the workshop. Whilst at the café I got to sample some Elder-flower juice with a white chocolate cannoli(o), which turned out to be more sickly than anticipated; however I would thoroughly recommend their brand of Elder flower

juice as it was both crisp and refreshing.

On our way down to the Museum, we came across some owl statues, I've not looked into their meaning; however if you know please do let me know, as I found them quite fascinating.

Em and I made our way into the converted museum and if we get the chance will definitely make our way around as there's a lot of history attached to this place that it's definitely worth 1-2 hours to get contextualisation from this historic city. The workshop itself was slightly underwhelming, a lot of what I was hoping to learn was information I already knew, and mostly I was looking to learn about tempering chocolate by hand and the workshop used machines with some rather dull flavoured variety of white, milk and dark chocolate. There was some challenge when we went; as Em was testing the Vegan phase, which meant that she had to work mainly with dark chocolate and due to the limited mobility in her hand meant both figuratively and pragmatically "getting my hands dirty". Fact of the day; Did you know the Oreo's are vegan? Well I didn't and having to crush them by hand with a spoon….Let me tell you, never again! One trick I did learn was about to make a quick and effective ganache as a big part of the course revolved around these delicious balls of goodness, and turns out there are so many flavours you can blend together with these; that it's a cute way to make homemade gifts with both look and taste good!

Two of my favourite flavours, but there's a variety of ways to utilise organic flavourings

All in all the workshop was more about spending time with a very good friend and whilst it didn't have the best ingredients; I would recommend it as an activity for a hen do, or birthday event or even like us if you're in the area and want a day to be able to lick a lot of chocolate without being judged for it…Although I'd highly recommend taking some mint or digestive based herbs as you'll start to feel sick pretty quickly!

As the course finished early, we took the opportunity to pack away our goodies in some not so cute boxes, and head down to a gorgeous place called "Pitcher & Piano" in Lace Market.

This Grade 11 Listed converted church is one of the most exquisite eatery places I've been to and steeped in history, but my word; the food alone would sell it to anybody. There's a wide variety of cocktails available and Em and I chose to sample 4 which left us rather tipsy. A walk around to stretch your belly and legs is recommended and if you take a walk up the stairs, you'll get some amazing Instagram worth shots.

We opted for a Chicken Club, Hummus and Garlic Bread Sharer.

This is a place you can definitely waste a lot of time in; and unfortunately my time keeping sucks at the best of times, which leads me to the ending of the day.

Now as stated above, even at the best of times my internal compass is messed up, so combining further delayed trains with a lack of timing and distance analysis and it was bound to be a disaster! As with any train strike in the North, as the day progresses trains become a mixture or worse delays or simple cancellations and having to make 4 changeovers due to cancellations and platform alterations really ruined the overall atmosphere of the day. Luckily I was able to get an air conditioned carriage on the trip to Leeds; however, I'd definitely recommend researching any news on Twitter, Google, Facebook etc. if you're planning on taking on trips on the glorious train lines; else take a chauffeur with you and enjoy an extra cocktail or two allowing yourself to snore loudly and definitely comfortably on your way home…

Below are a selection of my trial pieces. all in all I was very proud of myself for completing the workshop despite all the hiccups.

As always Ciao for Now!