Parting is such sweet sorrow ...

.. or Goodbye Miss Hope

Sad day today as our local sweet shop closes its shiny red door for the last time. The bell over that door will ring no more. Miss Hope, in her vintage 40's tea dresses, and Mr Greenwood, with his waxed handlebar moustache, have called time on their first, original and best sweet shop. This shop has been a big part of our lives, as you would expect, for a decade at least. Grace won a competition (I can't remember what for) and won a huge, I mean really huge jar of sweets when she was about five. Tom entered their Mother's Day competition the following year where you had to draw your mummy's face on a paper plate. It looked exactly like a blow-up doll. Everyone we showed it to said 'oh my God, it looks like a blow-up doll'. It did. I don't. Sadly he didn't win.

Since then we've been regulars. The failsafe kids' birthday present round these parts was always a big jar of sweets from Miss Hope's and a badge saying 'I've been a Good Boy' or girl. Christmas, birthdays, visits to the dentist, stocking up for 'Trick or Treat' or stocking fillers .. Miss Hope's was the go-to, one-stop shop.

Me - I'm a liquorice girl. So tonight I filled my boots with liquorice wands, wheels, Pontefract cakes and those incredibly hard liquorice sticks that you can never bite, break or chew. How the heck do you eat those things? I usually whack them on the dashboard and hope they crack into mouth-size pieces. The kids filled their baskets with double-dippers, refreshers, candy whistles and drumstick lollies. I can't believe I've got a lump in my throat writing this! (Maybe it's liquorice over-load.)

Goodbye Hope & Greenwood. We'll really really miss you.