All done........

The painting that is in the basement.  It took less than a gallon for the walls, as I only had to do one coat.  So I have three gallons of paint left.  I will use some on the spare bedroom downstairs and a walk in closet.  I plan on decorating those in July/August when it's too hot outside in the garden.

I am pleased with the results.  So now I am going to put it all back together.  I will say it has tired me out. It was a lot of work, but I am glad to have it all done before the gardening season starts.

I honestly don't know what to think anymore................

Not content in starting a war with Iran, now a certain person has done a post criticizing the Pope and portraying himself as Jesus ?????????

Are people around him not advising him on all these matters?  Or is he just a wild card doing what he wants, when he wants?

He is giving me something not right in his head vibes?  I mean who sets out to cause chaos in the world; with no regard for others?

I just don't know what to think?  I for one am fed up of it all.............

Little House on the Prairie......Netflix Trailer

 It still seems odd seeing other actors portraying the characters............

"They left everything they knew for a new life on the prairie. Meet the Ingalls family as they discover what “home” really means. Little House on the Prairie, based on the beloved books, premieres July 9, only on Netflix."

Bemused, might be the word.......

 along with amused.........

We called in at gas/petrol station on Sunday night on our way home, as the price of gas was $1.62 a litre, which is a good price...that in itself is a crazy statement saying that is a good price.

Anyhoo, I got out to fill the car, and the first thing I noticed was that I had to pay before we pumped the gas.  This is not a gas station we use very often.  So I grabbed my purse out of the car, and went back to the pump.

This time it asked for my CAA membership; okay so searched in my purse and got that out and swiped it.

It then asked for my Air Miles membership; once again searched in my purse and got that out and swiped that one as well.

By this time I am thinking, I should have brought my chair and coffee.

Next it asks how much gas (money wise) would I like to put in.  Normally I just fill to the top, so spent a few moments trying to figure that out and pressed the button.

Then it asked to swipe my credit card, so did that.  It then asked for pin # and it finally spit out my credit card.  It then asked what grade of gas I wanted....cheapest obviously...LOL

Then it was time to put the gas in my car.........it asked if I wanted a receipt, so got that.  Did discover that we got the gas for 3 cents cheaper per litre, due to the CAA membership; this was a Shell Gas station, so that was good.

I was ready for a nap by the time I had done all that 😏

So I was out Monday morning and the price of gas where I was at was $1.73 a litre......price gouging at it's finest!!!

All out of routine.........

I am a person who likes a routine.  I like to plan out my week ahead.  I do not like spur of the moment changes.  So getting sick wasn't part of the plan this past week.

However despite being sick I did manage to get the part of the basement painted that I planned on painting this past week.  It wasn't done until Saturday morning, but it was done.  Part of the issue with this basement decorating is that I can't do it all at once, it's too much for my hands.  Also I went and booked a company to come and clean the carpet and stairs down to the basement at the end of the month.  So I have a deadline; which is not something I normally do.

A bonus this past week, was getting more books read than I planned on doing this month, therefore cleaning out more books that have been laying around.  I will say though, the Jane Austen books are on hold as I can't handle them at the moment.

My goal for this basement for the upcoming week is to get it all painted and finished.  That will then give me another good week or so, to clean out cupboards and drawers down there and finishing tidying up in the laundry room before the end of the month.  That way I can do another trip to the charity store to donate stuff.

Oh and finally we got rid of the last of the snow........I hope I am not jinxing myself by saying this; as it is nearly the middle of April.  Hubby actually got out on Saturday and did the first of the winter cleanup.  It's far from being warm, but it's above freezing so we will take that as a win!

Mammogram........

 

It's been four years since I had my last one.  So when I went for one this week, I got a lecture.  I couldn't help but roll my eyes, I deserved a gold star for turning up.  I am very, very fortunate that cancer does not run in our family.  However, yes it's important to still get tested.

It was a new lady (too me) that did it this time and I swear she was trying to make me twist and move my body in ways even I knew wasn't possible!!!

Suffice to say, I survived, and lived to tell the tale.  

Oh and I had the dreaded PAP Smear earlier in the year when I went to see the nurse for something else, and got "coerced" into having a PAP Smear.  So all in all I have done my duty for the foreseeable, just saying!!!

Which one are you?

Still not feeling great so catching up on some reading.  I am a cross between The Statue/The Whisperer/The Hoarder.  I am trying my hardest though to read what I have before I buy anything else!!

I am reading this at the moment.  "Nothing Daunted, by Dorothy Wickenden," it's pretty good.

Feeling under the weather............

 

Hopefully not for long.  It's all in my head (LOL), and my poor ears are all blocked up.  It's a pain in the butt as I have a lot to do this week..........

Beautiful Sunday........and

 A Happy Easter to each and everyone of you.

A little peek at what I have been doing this past week..........

I started on the basement last week.  At one end of the main room, there is a built in unit.  All made with Ikea units by the previous owners.  The main work on this section is painting the units in white with a semi gloss.

On the wall behind the shelves they had put some paper, which was dropping off, so I had pulled it off ages ago.  It was taped on with sellotape/scotch tape???  So it was never going to stay put?

The middle shelf came out to paint, and I decided to put up this peel and stick wallpaper.

It looks lovely.  A pain in the butt to match up, as there are two strips of paper, and the match meant wasting at least six to ten inches each time.  However my mother gave me a great tip of cutting the lengths of the first strips, then cutting the next strip before putting up so I could see which strip matched the first one the best.  I know I haven't explained that well, sorry.  Also got hubby to mark a square straight line in the middle for me, as the units weren't truly square.

I painted the middle wall between the shelves, and  it only took the one coat.  All the unit was painted twice with semi gloss.  I got the wallpaper from Amazon, this one.  Great quality and once I got the hang of it, pretty straight forward to hang.

Hubby is now changing the electrical socket in the lower middle unit, and of course there is a problem with it (((SIGH)))  Thankfully he has the tools and knowledge to sort it all out.  I then have to put the books back etc, before moving on to another part.

The next part I am tackling is straight forward, BUT has five doors in that area, all to paint ((((SIGH)))) 🙄

I just love this show.....

 

 

 Do you?

PUNS FOR EDUCATED MINDS

How does Moses make his tea? Hebrews it....

Venison for dinner again? Oh deer!

A cartoonist was found dead in his home. Details are sketchy.

I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.

Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes.

England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool ...

I tried to catch some fog, but I mist.

They told me I had type-A blood, but it was a Type-O.

I changed my iPod's name to Titanic. It's syncing now.

Jokes about German sausages are the wurst.

I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid, but he says he can stop any time.

I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me.

This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I'd never met herbivore.

When chemists die, apparently they barium.

I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can't put it down.

I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.

I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me

Did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn't control her pupils?

All the toilets in New York 's police stations have been stolen. As of now, it appears the police have nothing to go on.

When you get a bladder infection you know urine trouble.

Broken pencils are pretty much pointless.

What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.

I dropped out of the Communism class because of lousy Marx.

I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.

Velcro - what a rip off!

Books I read in March.............

 "They Left Us Everything, by Plum Johnson"

After almost twenty years of caring for elderly parents--first for their senile father, and then for their cantankerous ninety-three-year old mother--author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers have finally fallen to their knees with conflicted feelings of grief and relief. Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, 23 rooms bulging with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum thought: How tough will that be? I know how to buy garbage bags.

But the task turns out to be much harder and more rewarding than she ever imagined. Items from childhood trigger difficult memories of her eccentric family growing up in the 1950s and '60s, but unearthing new facts about her parents helps her reconcile those relationships, with a more accepting perspective about who they were and what they valued.

They Left Us Everything is a funny, touching memoir about the importance of preserving family history to make sense of the past, and nurturing family bonds to safeguard the future.

I don't remember where I saw this book advertised as it was originally published in 2014, but I knew it was going to be well worth reading.  I rarely do this, but I went to Indigo and bought it, luckily I had a 20% coupon and so paid just under $20 for it.

I have been going through a "phase" recently trying to declutter the house so that our kids aren't stuck having to clean out the house when my husband and I die.  One thing though the author says, "is that we should leave everything for our children to clear out, so they can get to know us better?"  I will say I am not convinced this is a good idea.

This book was a well worth read though and a book every adult child, however old you are, should read.  Added bonus it was a written by a Canadian author.  Also I love the name Plum, very different....LOL     

"Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen"    

When ten-year-old Fanny Price is plucked from squalor to be raised in comfort among her well-to-do relatives at the elegant Mansfield Park, only her cousin Edmund notices her homesickness and distress. Bolstered by Edmund’s kindness, Fanny begins to thrive as a useful and happy member of the household, and her natural feelings of gratitude and respect for Edmund start to grow into something deeper. But when sophisticated Londoners Henry and Mary Crawford arrive at Mansfield Park, trouble arrives with them, and Fanny’s hard-won peace is threatened by the chaos the Crawfords leave in their wake.

I feel bad for not enjoying these classic Jane Austen books, but they are just so "wordy," and written for a different time in a different English language.

I found the first third of this book hard going.  The second third was a little better, but until I got to last third did I begin to want to know what was going to happen next.  However, the language used was too much for me to thoroughly understand and English is my first language.

One thing I will say is how things have changed over the past few hundred years.  What is appropriate now was so inappropriate then.  However, some things haven't changed and that is the selfishness of some people and the havoc it can wreak on everyone around them.

Now onto Emma, half way through the six Jane Austen books!

"Cradles of the Reich by Jennifer Coburn"

For fans of The Nightingale and The Handmaid's Tale, Cradles of the Reich uncovers a topic rarely explored in fiction: the Lebensborn project, a Nazi breeding program to create a so-called master race. Through thorough research and with deep empathy, this chilling historical novel goes inside one of the Lebensborn Society maternity homes that existed in several countries during World War II, where thousands of "racially fit" babies were bred and taken from their mothers to be raised as part of the new Germany.

At the Heim Hochland maternity home in Bavaria, three women's lives coverage as they find themselves there under very different circumstances. Gundi is a pregnant university student from Berlin. An Aryan beauty, she's secretly a member of a resistance group. Hilde, only eighteen, is a true believer in the cause and is thrilled to carry a Nazi official's child. And Irma, a 44-year-old nurse, is desperate to build a new life for herself after personal devastation. Despite their opposing beliefs, all three have everything to lose as they begin to realize they are trapped within Hitler's terrifying scheme to build a Nazi-Aryan nation. 

A cautionary tale for modern times told in stunning detail, Cradles of the Reich uncovers a little-known Nazi atrocity but also carries an uplifting reminder of the power of women to set aside differences and work together in solidarity in the face of oppression.

This book is a must read, as it's both quite scary but fascinating at the same time with how the Nazi propaganda worked.  I have read a book recently (can't remember it's name) that mentioned the Lebensborn Society.  This book goes more in depth with the subject.

I read this book over two days as it was a page turner.  When reading the author's notes at the back I was interested to discover that Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Frida) from the music group Abba was a person born from the Lebensborn Society.

The author has written a follow up book featuring Hilde a character in this book, called "The Girls of the Glimmer Factory."  I need to look for that one as that too sounds interesting.

"The Woman with Two Shadows, by Sarah James"

For fans of Atomic City Girls and Marie Benedict, a fascinating historical debut of one of the most closely held secrets of World War II and a woman caught up in it when she follows her missing sister to the mysterious city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Lillian Kaufman hasn't heard from her twin sister since Eleanor left for a mysterious job at an Army base somewhere in Tennessee. When she learns, on an unexpected phone call, that Eleanor is missing, Lillian takes a train from New York down to Oak Ridge to clear up the matter.

It turns out that the only way into Oak Ridge is to assume Eleanor's identity, which Lillian plans to do swiftly and perfectly. But Eleanor has vanished without a trace—and she's not the only one. And how do you find someone in a town so dangerous it doesn't officially exist, when technically you don't exist either?

Lillian is thrust into the epicenter of the gravest scientific undertaking of all time, with no idea who she can trust. And the more she pretends to be Eleanor, the more she loses her grip on herself.

Great book, very interesting and actually quite scary.  I read it in a day as I needed to know what was going to happen next.

The one thing I will say though it left me wondering, 

"although the people who invented these weapons of mass destruction are very clever, did they actually envision what they were doing to the rest of mankind?"

"Children of the Dustbowl, The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp, by Jerry Stanley"

This is the compelling story of the "Okie" migration to California and of the construction and life of a remarkable school at a farm workers' camp. This memorable book provides a glimpse of a neglected period of American history and tells a story of prejudice being transformed into acceptance and despair into hope.

This is a non fiction book and only 80+ pages with lots of photographs.  I found it when I was sorting some books out downstairs.  I knew very little about the Great Depression and the droughts in the Great Plain States in the 1930's.  

I have not read John Steinbecks, "Grapes of Wrath," which caused a huge kerfuffle back when it was written and it did mention the school written about it in this book.  

Very educational and both books should be read. 

Some things I managed to sell on Facebook Marketplace in March.........

2 brand new packs of storage/bankers boxes $25

This old chair I bought years ago to re-finish.......I never got around to it! $20

Set of 8 Denby coffee mugs. $50

Set of three brand new waterproof padlocks. $15

Quilters bundle (all three photos), $20

Two Suitcases, $20

My old pans, $50

My living room rug: $150

Wicker and Metal plant stand $25:

Dried Grass Decoration: $15

Funny thing is I never expected the pots and pans to sell. I was just going to donate them.  The same with the suitcases, was just going to donate those as well.  The rug sold within hours of me putting it online.  It was from Pier 1 Designs and the lady that bought it had one prior.  Plus it was a good quality rug.  I loved the look of it, but it was a pain to keep clean, plus it clashed with my new green chairs.

I never expected to sell all that stuff this month. All were items I had no need of or hadn't used in a long while.  I still have a few things listed and will keep them listed until I sell them.

Technically when this post is "posted" I will still have this at the house, but it's being picked up at lunch time today:

Scotts Seed spreader, $70

Wow, quite a month eh!

Update on Passports.........

Hubby, myself and son all got our British passports back this past week.  Daughter's is still being processed, as she had to send more information, but should be done I would have thought this week.

So all in all, it took about a month, which actually surprised me, I would have thought it would have taken longer..  We are still waiting on our documents we sent with the application, as they are returned separately.

The passports were delivered by DHL who just put them on our front porch.  No knock on the door or ringing of the front door bell???  We have to sign for our Canadian passports when they are delivered.  

So all in all another job done!

I could not pass up this deal,

 You know when something happens that you know it must have happened for a reason?  Well this week something happened and basically all the stars aligned!!

With having a good clean out and renovating the laundry room the rest of the basement is not looking a bit drab.  However it wasn't on the top of the list to deal with the rest of the basement.  There were a couple of sections of main room walls that needed touching up with paint.  I found the paint that the people we bought the house from had left us, but as it was from 2009 I wasn't sure how it was going to look.  Turned out it was a solid lump in the bottom of the tin.

I took a photo of the lid, with the thoughts I need to pick up a gallon of paint some time:

I have been selling a bit of stuff on Facebook Marketplace this month; there will be a post about it all in a couple of days.  While I was looking up prices of some stuff I was selling I came across a post for paint.  A painter/decorator's client must have got him to buy four gallons of paint and didn't like the colour when he started to put it on the walls.  I looked at the name of the paint and thought the name sounded familiar.

Yep, the exact same name and brand as our paint on our basement walls, from the exact same store.  I love the paint colour in the basement as it is nice and neutral.  I offered $125 for all four cans and he accepted and he even dropped them off at our house.  That paint should be $76 per can plus 13% tax, = over $85 a can.  What a deal!

So guess what I am going to be busy with 🙄  Oh well, nothing like keeping busy I suppose..........

More of the laundry room done................

We had a trip to Ikea at the beginning of the week to pick up some units and countertop for the laundry room.  As we only have a medium sized SUV we figured it would be a two trip visit, but we did manage to get everything in the car in the one trip.

We picked up 3 units and a countertop.  Now everything was flat packed and was to put together!!  So there were multiple boxes.  Good news though, we ordered everything in the kitchen department upstairs, then took the paperwork downstairs to pay for it all.  Then the order was sent through to where it's picked for you.  It didn't take too long and I crossed everything off our list while hubby put it in the car.

The units are from the Sektion collection.  The doors are Enkoping.  The countertop is Ekacken in gray-beige.  The handles are from Rona, and are these and come in a pack of 10.

We are super pleased with the quality of these units.  Very sturdy and well worth the money.  Now ask hubby what it was like to put everything together and he was glad when he got everything together; but overall very happy with how everything went.

We purchased an 8 foot countertop and that was super heavy to carry, but again super quality.  We priced out similar units from Home Depot and this came in cheaper.  All in all for everything it came in around $1,200.  We want it as a make shift sewing area/work bench; as I want to move my sewing stuff out of the upstairs bedroom eventually.

I will give you a full tour, when I get everything else sorted out in the room.

Filing Taxes

Got our taxes filed for another year.  Here in Canada we have to report income and "file our taxes," so the Government of Canada can make sure you have paid enough taxes for the prior year.  The deadline is April 30th.

2025 was hubby's first full year of retirement, so it was going to be a "first" for us filing our taxes with only income from pensions and RRSP's.  When you first retire that first year is a bit of a guessing game as to whether what you have planned and what actually happens aligns.

I am pleased to say it did align, sort of.  The good news we didn't owe tax, but budget wise we did go slightly over budget with our expenses.  Luckily we do have a cushion, so it wasn't the end of the world, plus we did pay for a couple of unexpected things.

What this means for 2026, is that we don't need to change how we do things.  I will say I feel as though we are better off since we retired, and as yet I can't pin point how?  Which I know is odd.

I will say I am fortunate that hubby was such a hard worker and I was a preplanner.  This has made retirement financially easier on us.  Though what is happening in the States is not making things easy up here, as every time a certain person opens his mouth we end up losing money 😡

So my advice for anyone thinking about retiring, plan well ahead if you want to retire.  Research, research and research.  Get rid of any debt before you retire, going into retirement not owing anything but your regular bills, is a god send in my opinion. 

If you have any tips you want to share I would love that.

'Tis the season.....

 for Potholes........

Some days you are following people who are swerving all over the place and are thinking are they drunk?  No they're avoiding potholes!  There are a number of roads around our area which are notorious for how many potholes there are.  

I was in the mall, which is one of those malls where all the stores are outside.  Their issue is sunken manholes; along with potholes, it is awful.  

It's no worse this year than other years, it's just annoying!

I am sure you all have multiple stories to tell about this?

Meanwhile:

(image credit)

New pots and pans..........

So I finally got around to ordering and receiving a new set of pots and pans.  I ended up getting them from here:

I got this set in green.

I was talking to daughter-in-law about hers and her only complaint is after a few years the colour starts to chip off the pans.  I have used theirs when were were staying over and found they were great and nothing stuck.

I haven't had a chance to try mine out much yet, but looking forward to it.  My only complaint so far is that I would have preferred another saucepan over two shallow pans/fry pans.  Also not that this bothers me, they are not dishwasher safe, they are to hand wash, which may put some people off?

Love tulips, but........

Have no luck at all with bunches of them in the house.  I cannot get them to last a week without them completely drooping.

I got these last Wednesday:

By the Monday they were all droopy.  I hammered all the ends of the stems hoping that would help, but no.  Any tips on how to keep tulips in a vase without them drooping?

No words needed....LOL

 It was my birthday last week and we went out for lunch with the kids.  I got a birthday treat supplied by the restaurant..........my face says it all!!  I was frightened I wasn't going to have any eyebrows left.....LOL

The chocolate cake I took home and shared it with hubby later and it was actually good.  

Wonky Donkey..........

We have a couple of Wonky Donkey books and I loved reading them to the kids, this is a different take on it which I thought was neat.........

These never get old.............

 All from the Vicar of Dibley........

Emma Chambers, who played Alice has since passed...........

A Bougainvillean bamboo band

 This is so neat and very catchy.............

Doesn't make an ounce of sense to me, but......

 what do I know?

Let me explain.  If you go to a drive through restaurant or coffee shop, you generally see a timer on the wall.  The employee's are expected to get each order out and the customer through the drive through within a certain time.  I am sure many of you are familiar with this?

I went to the grocery store on Saturday morning, which is unusual for me, as I tend to avoid stores on the weekend.  Anyhow, this is a Zehrs store, which are overseen by Loblaws, which is one of the major grocery retailers here in Canada.

Fast forward to checking out, and there was a guy in front of me, who was taking advantage of some deals, exclusively posted on the store's Facebook page.  I sighed when I saw this as none of the cashiers have any idea how to put these deals in the system.  And this cashier true to form had no idea, anyhow, I told the cashier to call over the superviser, as there were two of them standing talking a little down the way.  They ignored her, so I called the supervisor over.  She had no choice but to walk on over now, and I guess she sucked on a lemon on the way over by the expression on her face...LOL  Anyhow got everything sorted out with that and the poor guy went on his merry way, and the supervisor went and sucked on some more lemons!!

Then it was my turn and I was chatting away with the cashier and she started telling me about how the till times each transaction now.  They are expected to get people's orders through in a certain time.  They are made to sign some paperwork about this.  Another cashier came over to talk to me as well about it, as I was in disbelief about this.  I even asked, "What just like a drive through?"  They said yes.  What is you have coupons?  What if you have a huge order?  What if an item is priced wrong?  What like the guy in front of me who had the Facebook pricing and no one knows how to ring in those items?

My "surrogate daughter," worked for Loblaws, so I was telling her this story and she said honestly she's not surprised.  She was saying that none of the higher end Loblaws brick and mortar stores any making any money.  The online ordering and delivery's are making money.  They are building more "lower prices," grocery stores, like No Frills, Independent, etc, as folk are shopping there more.  They are trying to reduce costs when ever they can.

Now I can almost guarantee if this chain of stores is doing this, the rest will follow suit.  It must be so demoralizing for the staff who are not that well paid to now have to make sure they keep to a strict timetable when putting people's orders through.

Thoughts?

March fruit and veggie bag............

 I picked up March fruit and veggie bag, which I paid $20 for.

The fruit was 1lb of strawberries, 3lbs Gala apples, 2 extra large naval oranges.........they were good!!

The veggies were 10lbs potatoes, 2 lbs onions (I gave them to a neighbour), 2lbs carrots, an extra large sweet potato, a green leaf lettuce, 2 heads of broccoli

Not sure if I got my money's worth this month?  I guess I did.

I will use the sweet potato to make wedges.  The carrots for soup.  The potatoes to make baked potatoes and I plan on making a couple of shepherd's pies for the freezer.  Had the lettuce, just dressed with a parmesan and basil dressing, got two meals out of it as it was a large head of lettuce.  The broccoli as a side veg with a meal.

Better than the original?

 

I think so, do you?

Pre-Birthday treat....

Hubby took me out for Afternoon Tea on Friday.  I knew all about it and it was at a British Store/Restaurant close to where we live.  We went for breakfast there the other week, and I wrote about it here.

The cost per person was $42.50 plus taxes, which worked out too around $48 each, with tip we paid a total of $110.  There was a lot of food!  The top tier included a shortbread cookie with jam in the middle, dark chocolate mousse, and Eton Mess.

Middle tier one plain and one cheese scone each.  It came with jam and clotted cream which was homemade.  We had to ask for butter for the plain scone, and she brought a container of margarine 😐

Bottom tier there were 3 Coronation chicken (cooked chicken, mayo and curry powder) sandwiches each, 3 cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches each, and 3 egg mayo and spring onion (salad onions) each. A mini broccoli and cheese quiche, and a mini bacon, egg and cheese quiche each.

Drinks was unlimited tea or coffee, we chose coffee.

As the scones and quiche's were warm we ate those.  Due to having different flour over here in Canada, the scone's were very dense, but putting the clotted cream and jam on the plain one, made that taste better.  Putting marg on the cheese scone didn't help; I suggested they supply butter in future as it had a better taste than cheap margarine.  The lady was surprised we asked for butter as she thought we would put the clotted cream and jam on the cheese scone????

The quiches were just the standard store bought quiches, or at least the pastry cases were store bought.

We had to eat the Eton Mess and the Chocolate Mousse as we couldn't take those home with us.  The Eton Mess was good, the chocolate mousse was nasty.  I love chocolate but this mousse was again very dense and bitter,  and I could taste the cocoa powder in the teaspoon I tried.  The lady said that the mousse seemed to be left most of the time.  I suggested a light lemon mousse as by the time you have worked your way through the bottom two tiers you are looking for a lighter finish.

We tried a sandwich each and they were fine.  The bread they used was really nice.

We took home the rest of the sandwiches and the cookie and had them for supper.

So all in all it covered both our lunch and supper.  The sandwiches wouldn't have lasted any longer as they were already drying out by supper time.

Overall we thoroughly enjoyed it.  It made a super nice treat and the coffee as I said before is really good.

Overall well worth the price for the amount of food we got, they just need to make a couple of adjustments in my opinion to make it even better.

P.S. I just wanted to say I loved all your comments you made about the sugar sandwiches.💖