Delamere is a darling














I've been reading Delamere's blog for a while now. Reasons for my continued readership are varied but include being impressed that she's managing to raise three kids ranging in ages from 6 to 13, has a rewarding career, a nice husband, a brilliant sense of perspective and an enviable way of looking at life and writing about things orbiting her sphere (not that she's spherical in size, of course) in a manner that is observant but not nasty. Oh and she quite likes that little known authoress Ms Jane Austen.

She found me via chocablog and we became fellow lurkers and then regular commenters. Now that we've moved to and ensconced ourselves in Melbourne, it was time to meet the lady in person. We figured that her daughter C could meet my Sapphire and discuss all matters relating to rabbit ownership, the wonders of both Abba and all Mamma Mia performers (except Pierce Brosnan) and whether the Beanie Kids craze was still relevant in the post-Hannah Montana world.

And bless Dela's (yes, I'm abbreviating even her blog name now) sweet heart; the second I opened the door she stood there offering up a fresh carton of Farmers Union Iced Coffee as a greeting. If it had been accompanied with a Lindt Ball necklace, our meeting would have been pretty well perfect.**


I must have uttered these idle thoughts out loud instead of just keeping it to myself because C shyly smiled and said, "I like chocolate too."

"Oh you do, do you?" was my response before I led her into the kitchen to show her what was in my stash for the week. "Would you like to help me taste some for my next review?"
















Would she ever. Delamere then decided it was time to drop me a bombshell. She used to work for Cadbury. Yes, the Cadbury. Home of the Dairy Milk; the original (and most generously-sized) 250g family block; the excellently revamped Old Gold; the solid gold Crunchie; the evil-but-essential Creme Egg.

Plus, she used to bring her 'work' home with her. Regularly. Plentifully. Necessarily. I was so overcome by this unexpected news I slurped down my iced coffee in uncharacteristic silence, trying to digest just how she remained slim, healthy and willing to leave such a place. That is, until she explained how difficult it was to go shopping without bumping into work colleagues and having to disrespectfully shove the Lindt balls, Twix bars and non-Cadbury Schweppes-related general grocery items under the slabs of Rum-n-Raisin, Top Deck, Cottees cordials and jam jars. Yep, that's likely to force any true chocophile to start searching the Work Wanted advertisements - no-one should be made to stick to just the one brand of chocolate in this democratic, 'fair go' brown land of ours. Yes, I do note the appropriateness of living in a 'brown' land.

I was stoked that Delamere 'got' my 'WWJJD' (What Would Joan Jett Do?) t-shirt and noted that yes, she too had Edward DeBono's 'Mind Pack' still in its plastic wrapper on her bookshelf as well. In fact it will now become my 2009 resolution to open it, work through the puzzles and hopefully gain some kind of remedial entry into the until-now completely mystifying world of lateral thinking.




















As for Sapphire and C, they hit it off immediately and spent the afternoon avoiding the heat through systematically going through every item located in her bedroom, engaging in copious chatter, intermittent giggles and joyously scraping their front teeth on frozen Sunny Boy Glugs.

Delamere waited for my reaction when she asked if we'd be interested in going to the Harold Holt Memorial Pool for a swim. Only Australia (or perhaps Melbourne itself?) could name a pool after the one and only Prime Minister known for going missing whilst swimming in the sea.....

Unfortunately, we have to stay near home to await news on a viola, collect some ordered school uniforms and hang around for the delivery of our new BBQ. As we're discovering, 'delivery times' are about as elastic as Pamela Anderson's g-strings and 'morning' has been known to mean any time from 7:00am to, say, 9:30pm.

Said BBQ is a stainless steel behemoth, a veritable kitchen-cabinet-on-wheels that Love Chunks assures me will be:
a) worth every penny;
b) able to be easily lifted into our back verandah by one scrawny delivery man;
c) called into action least five nights per week to cook dinner; and
d) used by him every time.

Well that's all right then.


** On second thought, seeing as it was a sweat-slicked 41C today, perhaps the Lindt ball necklace would have ended up as a oily waistcoat and not have been such an attractive prospect after all.