Sun,sea and chocolate

After an eventful week - I lost our camera and we had a leak on the kitchen ceiling -  it was good last Sunday morning to wake to brilliant sunshine and take a trip along the coast to West Bay.  

As we walked around the harbour the tide was well in and the local gig team were getting ready to go out on the water. Over the past ten years or so gig racing has spread from it's native home of Cornwall along the South West coast to Dorset. The gigs are large wooden rowing boats manned by 6 rowers. They were initially used for ferrying pilots and goods out to larger ships, also for life saving and smuggling. 

The view of the coastline from the harbour wall was spectacular. The cliffs always remind me of gingerbread. You may be able to pick out a few people walking along the top.

 I never tire of listening to the rythmic sound of the waves crashing on the beach and the pebbles murmuring as they are pulled back to sea.(click here for a similar sound effect.)

We always have a dilemma when we visit West Bay as we have two favourite cafes we visit that both welcome dogs. Ellipse won on this occasion although they serve fantastic coffees they also have a chocolate machine that produces the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted.

Despite the disasters of the week (the leak has been fixed) -  the camera has not been handed in to the police these pictures are taken with our old camera that consumes batteries at an alarming rate.) I was so excited to receive this fantastic book, which was a recent give-away from Annie at Knitsofacto wasn't I lucky!  Annie also sent me some chocolate too - a  Divine bar of milk chocolate with toffee and sea salt (it didn't last long ) and Beyond Dark Moments of pleasure chocolate buttons. Thank you so much Annie, if you haven't met her do pop over and visit her, she has many talents and blogging is one of them.

The book has an amazing collection of fantastic recipes all using chocolate. The pictures themselves are a feast to the eyes. What can a chocoholic do but try them!

I thought I would be good and try something that looked quite healthy, Chocolate and cherry polenta cake (see above right). It was nice but next time it will contain more calories -  now will it be chocolate butterscotch bars, chocolate doughnuts,white chocolate cappuccino gateau, black forest gateau -what a dilemma!

As my title linked in the sea and chocolate maybe this will make you smile :-

This guy found a bottle on the ocean, and he opened it and out popped a genie, and he gave him three wishes. The guy wished for a million dollars, and poof! there was a million dollars. Then he wished for a convertible, and poof! there was a convertible. And then, he wished he could be irresistible to all women... poof! he turned into a box of chocolates. 

Do you share my passion for chocolate?

Thank you for so many comments and your stories of how the countryside has changed where you live too. Welcome and hello to my new followers Cathy who has a few blogs and owns a Westie, Tori at Noisy Day Dreams and Janine from Secret from the sea.

Hope you are have a good weekend.

Sarah x