Embarrassment of Sweets

How does a thing start?

I have always loved liquorice. I think it started with black jelly beans when I was four or five. When I lived in New York, I could always buy good liquorice whenever I wanted – which wasn’t that often. However, the English taste in liquorice, like most of their sweats is really too sweat and has no strong flavor.

But as luck would have it, I was working with a lovely dutch girl who told me about ‘drop’ and became my supplier of good quality candy from Holland. For those you know drop, I only like sweet, not salty and really mostly munten, honing and katjes. But I left Gartner and my contact with Marielle and inter-office mail.

A year in to a new job and I was buying the occasional bar of Panda for nearly £2 per bar and only at high end organic stores. So my mother bought me a bag of scotty dogs at Christmas. I took some to Leamington and the people loved them, so I requested some more. Mom sent 10lb! I gave away lots more and actually still have about 2lbs!

However, that amount of donation resulted in four more people getting and giving me candy. Andy in Leamington found some there, and has shared some with me. Denise found some very respectable New Zealand brand called RJs. Then Jane and Julie in London have been to Amsterdam a few times and bought be large amounts.

Back in St Margarets, Stephan, the father of a child in Ryan’s class is from Amsterdam and has shared some of his stash from his brother’s visits. And our good friends moved back to Finland where Ari grew up next to the Panda factory (I never knew where it was from) so they have been bringing us more on visits, and took me to the factory’s shop when we visited – I bought a lot for nearly nothing.

Clearly the generosity has been overwhelming, I must have nearly 3 lbs of liquorice still and seemingly little hope of getting rid of it. Nearly everyone I share it with offers to find me more. So now, for the time being, I have stopped sharing or mentioning liquorice at all, at least until I am down to my last bag.