I am SO easy to please...

What does it take to almost reduce a grown woman to tears in the middle of a hypermarket on a cold and dreary day in Moscow?

Not much.

Just this, actually.

I like cheese, almost as much as chocolate. If I had to choose between the two I think the only reason chocolate would win out is because, not having a refrigerated handbag, cheese doesn't provide such an ever-accessible treat. Mind you, thinking about it, that might be a reason for me to prefer it; it's less accessible, not such an instantly obtainable cheap date.

Sadly for me, Moscow doesn't really cater for my tastes in either cheese or chocolate, although it fares a little better for the former than the latter. You can get decent cheese here - mostly of the continental European kind - more easily than you can get decent chocolate. Unfortunately, what I hadn't yet come across was affordable decent cheddar. And, being a West Country girl, 'decent' means just that, not the plastic blocks masquerading as cheddar that were available in some supermarkets. Frankly, I would rather eat my (home-made) chutney on dry toast than waste it on the rubbish чеддер that is normally available.

So today, when I saw this beauty* smiling up at me from the cheese fixture at Auchan, I cracked a huge smile - and bought two packs. It would have been more - if those weren't the last.

Husband will be delighted. Not because he loves cheddar as much as I do (as a Dutchman his heart will always belong to Old Amsterdam), but because, if this proves a reliable supply, he won't have to keep lugging blocks of the stuff back with him on business trips. Little does he realise that that simply means there will now be more room for him to bring back the essentials to feed my other 'ch' addiction...

* Other cheddars are available. I even prefer some of them to Cathedral City, actually, but since this is the one that has made itself available to me in this decent-cheddar-less desert, this is the one I've bought...