Chocolate cures the blues, helps you through lockdown, and certainly brings joy. I’m a self-confessed chocolate addict and happily experienced that particular feeling of joyousness when on Sunday, my birthday, I started to consume several gifts of chocolate that had been sent to me. Today, with my birthday a couple of days behind me, my chocolate pile just a mere bar or two, and a feeling of withdrawal beginning to immobilise me, I stumbled across this article in The Guardian. ‘Handmade bars you may not wish to share.’
The article tells how pâtissier and chocolatier, Gabriella Cugno makes a selection of ‘gourmet filled chocolate bars’ about four times a year, as well as other specials (Easter eggs) that you pre-order, which I’ve done, hoping Gabriella might sense my desperation and dispatch some of my order early. It’s not cheap, but like fine wine and good whisky, it seems to a chocoholic like me essential to have one or two of Gabriella’s products stashed away somewhere for when you might need them.
Thanks to all who sent me birthday greetings. It was strange, with lockdown confining me to home, but with Zoom and social media I managed to make contact with friends and family, enjoy a special meal and some excellent wine and watch a couple of movies. And of course, chocolate, but I’ve already mentioned that.
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My recent publications
Life in four stories
All proceeds go to the INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS (ICRC) to help the most vulnerable communities fight COVID – 19.
Four shorts: two about life, love, and death; one a poignant and disturbing memory that dangles a question unanswered; and one a wild fantasy – plus the first chapter of my latest book, Otto and Frankie.
By buying this book you are helping fund ICRC in its valuable work.
Thank you.
My latest novel, Otto and Frankie, is about a dying man’s fight against injustice, his wife’s unusual affair, and the love from his long-lost daughter.
Otto and his daughter Frankie could not be more different. He’s rich, an acclaimed author, human rights activist, and lives in England. She lives in New York, just about survives from one pay cheque to the next and hasn’t seen or spoken to her father for twenty years. Dutifully reunited by his impending death, she’s amazed to find him a kind and noble man who, while grappling with his wife’s bizarre affair, champions for the world’s forgotten and dispossessed to his last. After Otto’s death, Frankie’s admiration for her father leads her into a dangerous and life changing pursuit.
Nick Wastnage 