A wonderful summer

I hope you are, as you are reading this, enjoying your summer.

It has been beautiful weather, warm, even if it is a bit dry at the moment, it changes from the wet summer we have had regularly since the last many years, except through covid when there were no chemtrails and we had such blessed beautiful weather.

I am here today to announce to you that despite all my good will, there isn't much chocolate stock available.

The main reason is not the chocolate running out, despite it being my last bag of dark chocolate, but the fact that it seems to be a tradition that at this time of year, l cannot successfully make my stock.

Yes, i well admit my temporary defeat to you, O customer of my dreams, you who have this idea that what l touch turns to delicious, beautiful looking chocolate.

Delicious, maybe.

Beautiful, no.

Yes, this time of year, when it is sunny and warm outside, my tempering doesn't work.

This is the 2d time now that i attempt to do this dark chocolate stock, of fruit and nuts, and the new arbitrary fruit bar which you haven't seen yet, with whatever fruit l have at hand.

The thermometers are saying the right temperature as if it is tempered; i temper the chocolate as l usually do. And every year it is the same. I had a crisis last year after redoing the fruit and nuts 3 times and having to clean and wash the moulds every time.

I had at the time bought a new thermometer, which had not made any positive difference, other than showing me the old one was reading slightly differently.

It is as if the thermometers are not able to say what the temperature actually is.

So this year, i bought a new thermometer which is a dipping one, which takes ages to tell me the temperature, but shows me my other 2 thermometers are wrong.

Even with this one, the tempering is wrong.

It is always too cold.

So, if l ignore this, and make sure it is a bit too hot, then it sets as too hot, with the usual signs of a tempering which was too hot. Swirls and cracks.

It is taking me a huge effort to write this to you today, and, after having said I would be away for 2 weeks when l went to France which ended up being a month without you being able to buy anything, now it seems like it is going to be 2 months before l can make any sellable stock.

So, keeping in mind that i just had a new homeopathy remedy last week and knowing this is also likely to be part of the aggravation which always comes with a new remedy, l tell myself that this is just a glitch and i should concentrate on doing other things than chocolate. And that, today, i would have been better off making a batch of nougat with local honey rather than waste 5h doing my best to do some tempering which didn't work and isn't even artistic looking, which i didn't want to do and had to drag myself doing, as i knew the result would be wasted time.

You can see now what l mean:

The tablette on the far left is nearly bearable, but not quite.

What l find interesting is the nuts are at the right temperature, keeping the chocolate perfect, but the mass of the chocolate itself is white.

Now what?, I hear you say.

Now, well, what l will do, is just put online what l have to sell, which isn't very much as l have to share it with my markets, where l sell a lot of stock at the moment.

So, here we are, l will open the shop for you.

I also need to look into the postage costs as it has gone up and i still haven't looked at it since April. It takes ages to find the page on my website, now l don't have a friend anymore who can do this for me (insert here the crying rivers emoji, which i will spare you as i find them so annoying).

So, the website work is taking me a lot longer, as, by the time l have understood it, the next time l need to do the same thing, it takes the same enormous amount of time to find out how to do it. I am enjoying very much having a website and a sieve to keep my information in to.

Well, what a joyous summer, beautiful sunsets, and it is such a joy to be outside, warm, making vitamin D, in the sun.

May your summer be one of successes,

Blessings to all,

Alexandra