And the winner is...

Chosen at random, the winner is...

... Kelloggsville, who writes at A Guiding Life. Glad you were guided to this chocolate, Kelloggsville. Congrats to you. I will be in touch, and I hope you enjoy your egg!

Thanks to Hotel Chocolat for providing this giveaway.

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Free chocolate here!

Yes, thought that would get your interest.

Do you remember that before Christmas I reviewed some chocolate from the lovely Hotel Chocolat? Those lovely people have given me the chance to show you one of their yummy Easter products, and they're going to give one of you a free sample. It's this:

Looks delicious, huh? And it's so witty, which is one of the aspects of Hotel Chocolat products that I love. Look at those chocolate toast soldiers - white bread that's been dipped in a soft boiled egg! How clever is that?

You can buy one of these "You Crack Me Up" delights at the Hotel Chocolat website, for £28.00. Alternatively, you can leave me a comment, and on 27th March, which is 9-yo's birthday, I will have her pick a number at random out of a hat, and we will tell you who gets the prize. So entries please by midnight on Wednesday, 26th March. To enter, you have to leave me a comment telling me a happy chocolate memory - and it can be anything, because remember, the winner pick will be random and not based on the quality of the memory you share.

And while you ponder your own chocolate memories, I'll tell you one of mine. For my 21st birthday, I went out to dinner with 9 friends. We were at university at the time. We went to a fondue restaurant, and when we were all stuffed to bust with melted cheese and raw veggies, for some reason, inexplicable except that we were young and having fun, we ordered a chocolate fondue for dessert. I remember walking back to my college room afterwards, and feeling like really I should carry on walking all night, just to get rid of that weight of rich food in my stomach.

Share a happy chocolate memory with me, and you might receive that lovely "You Crack Me Up" egg! (You can enter the giveaway wherever you live, but the prize can only be posted to a UK address.)

Disclaimer:
For this post, I am receiving no chocolate. Just the egg (retail value £28.00) that is going to one of you lovely readers of my blog. (Incidentally, just so you know how much I love you all, I might mention that I was offered the choice of receiving the product for review, or running a giveaway, and I opted for the latter. We had free chocolate at Christmas, and I believe in spreading the love a little.) The opinions of the product are my own.

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Chocolate Mingles and Jingles

This post is a review post.

When I was living in America, one of my frustrations was the lack of websites from which you could order gifts for family and friends living back in the UK. Most companies have worked out that the delivery address isn't always the credit card billing address, but lots of them hadn't worked out that the two addresses might be in different countries. Hello? Is that complicated?

So when I discovered that the Hotel Chocolat website could cope with this, it became my go-to place for presents. After all, who doesn't like receiving chocolate? And it's such high-class chocolate. Tasty, imaginative, a feast for the eyes as well as the taste buds. One thing I love about the website, is that there's a good range of prices. You can give someone a treat without it being ridiculously expensive. I find it the ideal present for a family.

Hotel Chocolat sent me this lovely bag of delights.

A 'Mingles and Jingles Bag' it's called. See? What did I say about "imaginative"? Would you have dreamt up that catchy title? White chocolate bells, dark chocolate penguins, and milk caramel angels, 2 inches tall, individually wrapped, in a pretty sack-ette, plain yet sparkly, that any aspiring Santa would be pleased to be ho-ho-ho-ing down the chimney with. Lovely  presentation, and well-packaged, so no worries about boxes arriving through the post bashed and mis-shapen. These people really understand the concept of a luxury gift - but I was also interested to read about their social conscience.

There's a promotion on at the moment on their website. If you spend £60 on chocolates (I know, I know, but if you were buying for several people, perhaps?), you get a free gift sent to your home address.  

Yes, Hotel Chocolat definitely gets the Iota seal of approval. This year, a bag of chocolates. Next year, I'm hoping they might want me to review their hotel on the isle of St Lucia.  

This was a review post. I received a 'Mingles and Jingles Bag' from Hotel Chocolat, valued £21. The opinions and writing in the review are my own.

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