A Truly Joyous And Emotional Meet-Up ....... And A World First"

First of all we need to cut to the chase immediately and address the elephant in the room, when we say that "someone" decided to put an old SD card in our camera and as a result we sadly lost quite a few pictures from this momentous occasion! heads haven't quite rolled yet, but it's come close!  Let's just say that the mood round our laptop as the format of such pictures was found to be "unrecognised" was sombre .........  however, the really, really important ones were, thankfully, still there and those we simply can't recover, well, as Eric so succulently put it, at least no one can erase those from our minds!! 

So, here we are at last, after months of planning, all dressed up in our finest, finally sat sitting with Seaside Karen (on the left) and Pharmacy Michelle (on the right) for the very first time. I cant tell you how nervous we all were .........

.... but within seconds we were all taking ten to the dozen, like we'd known each other forever .......

..... well, I suppose we have, after many, many years of comments and via email and the post, we couldn't even remember how long, but never actually in real life, up close and personal.

To say it was emotional is putting it mildly, but we all managed to hold it together, which was something of a miracle in itself!  

A multitude of presents were exchanged, but we decided to keep ours for when we got back to The Towers, knowing that we'd all be on a proper deep downer as soon as our suitcase hit the floor in the hall......

....... so opening wonderful, mysterious, tissue wrapped packages would be a most excellent way to lift our spirits back up where they belong!

Our afternoon tea as per Darrell's rigid instructions (no egg mayo or tuna) was to die for too, a little bit of everything, although with all the nattering, it took quite a while for us to nom through. 

 And our world first?

Well, we only went and did our very first colab confectionary review together, to wit  Aero Pistachio, as found by Darrell in Manchester the other week!

Would we all agree ........

 ....... or would there be the need for robust and vigorous heated debate?

Fortunately we all agreed ......

The gentle aroma of pistachio was subtle and enticing ........

...... with the texture of the bubbly centre adding a certain je n'sais quoi .......

...... however, we all agreed that the chocolate surrounding the bubbles was just far too sweet .........

....... overpowering the pistachio flavour completely.

We concluded that if we could have just the naked, unadulterated bubbly centre as a bar in it's own right, without the chocolate, it would be perfect.

Therefore, in the end we scored Aero Pistachio pretty low, between 4.50 and 5.00 on our world famous Richter Scale of Noms (4.75 then????), which was disappointing, but what wonderful experience, as we've never shared a review before.

And then, when it seemed we'd only just got started, it was time for Seaside Karen and Pharmacy Michelle to sadly wend their way back home, making us realise there were so many questions we still needed to ask and explore (but not in Parliament) following some very interesting snippets of conversation, we're just plain nosy I suppose.  

However, in a very dramatic, but in the end quite fortuitous error when originally buying our first set of rail tickets, we mistakenly entered the wrong date in August, which can't now be exchanged or refunded, so rather than be let them go to waste, well, it would be rude for us not make a return visit and do it all over again?????  A very, very happy day, none of us will ever forget, cementing our friendship even further.  

Next meet up?  Seaside Karen, Pharmacy Michelle and Jan the Fan all meeting up with Mr D when he next returns to these shores????????