Sunday, March 23, 2008

Easter Bunny

Today

It's Easter day today. Actually the earliest date it can be - 23rd March. So, of course, it's been snowing.

Having already discovered, as part of retirement, that weekends have less importance, we now find that Easter has also slid into insignificance. We're not religious and we have no little ones to give Easter Eggs to. And as we're no longer working we don't feel the need to take advantage of the long break.

"Should we send Easter cards?" enquired my spouse. "If you like", I replied "who to?" He could only come up with a couple of names and it didn't seem worth the bother.

Lizzie is working this weekend and Becky decided that she would like to pop down to Brighton with a friend. So no company.

To make it worse, Paul & I have been experimenting with the lemon detox diet and aren't really allowed to eat anything more than soup or the detox concoction.

So a non-event really

In My Day

Like most festivals in my childhood, Easter was celebrated along formulaic lines. The only variable was the date, and therefore, the weather.

On Easter day Mamma & Daddy would have hidden eggs all over the house. There was no concept of being given personal eggs. These eggs ranged from tiny foil-wrapped chocolate eggs to large hollow ones which were often broken by the time you found them. Our house was large with high ceilings (this often seemed to give an unfair advantage to my already advantaged brothers because they were tall enough to peer into light fittings etc). If the weather was good the eggs might be hidden in the garden.

Before the day Mamma would have spent some time hard-boiling eggs and putting sheets of German egg dye into water. The eggs came out with blue, green and pink shells. She would also boil some with onion skin to give a deep golden sheen. When the eggs were done she'd rub lard on the shells to make then shine. If the shells had cracked during the boiling process there'd be a delicate coloured veining across the white. I found that especially delightful.

"Go!" was shouted and we were allowed to search for the eggs. It always seemed that the boys found more than me or my sister but it didn't much matter as they were always fairly shared out. Mamma & Daddy always knew exactly how many eggs they'd bought and it was a rare Easter when we found them all. Stray eggs would turn up over the coming months - popping out from under cushions or rolling off books on the shelves.

The chocolate the eggs were made of was always a bit of a disappointment and, to tell the truth, I preferred the hard-boiled ones and could make quite a pig of myself on them.

Ah well, on the detox diet I'm not even allowed a boiled egg!

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Lollipop

Today

Walking around North Lane in Brighton today, Liz became very excited at seeing Cyber Candy. It's actually a sweet shop but with items from the more obscure end of the market. "I can never remember where it is," said the delighted Liz "I always seem to find it by mistake."

The girls went in and were soon saying things like "Ooh, I remember those" "I used to love those". And so on. It was rather bizarre, hearing the girls talking nostalgically about their favourite childhood sweets like a couple of old 'uns.

The shop sold Pez, complete with dispensers, obscure flavours of Kit Kat and chocolate covered insects. The packs of insects, having reassured doubters that there were real insects inside, went on to inform you that the contents did not contain significant amounts of protein, fat or other nutrients. As if your reason for eating them was all that luscious locust meat inside.

In My Day

We used to have 6d a week pocket money and there was no restriction on spending it all on sweets. On Sunday mornings we used to walk down to Wellsley Road Rec where there was a sweet shop. We bought sherbet lemons and penny chews.

I particularly remember the little sweets which looked rather like pieces of Italian Millefiore. I liked licorice sticks and clove sweets. We bought aniseed balls, gobstoppers and bubble gum (this last was always disappointing as I couldn't get it to bubble and it tasted like old rubber). We were allowed to eat rock on seaside visits and honeycomb, candy floss and toffee apples, when we went to fairs. No wonder so many of my teeth are now made of porcelain.

I certainly remember Pez appearing in the shops. I think we were older by this time; but, even so, buying the dispensers felt like a big outlay and it was always a worry when the little spring broke.

We certainly couldn't afford chocolate, which only made an appearance at Easter, St Nicholas's night and Christmas, or if Mamma was given Black Magic as a gift (toffee and Montelimar for me, please).

At Cyber Candy what we were all agreed on was to give the chocolate covered insects a miss.