Easter Sunday, and lots of loving messages from friends and family wishing us a Happy Easter. Feels weird, doesn’t it? We would normally see people and have our kids and their families round for an Easter celebration, in some format or other, usually along the lines of a church service, then ‘Brunch’, egg-rolling in Abbey Fields, Kenilworth, and finally, a real feast of a lamb roast dinner, a delicious pud and fine wine. We did our best to re-create it all as best we could, but… oh! how I missed them all today. My beautiful boys – I so wanted to see them, to hug them, and to celebrate the meaning of Easter with them face-to-face.
However, despite the heartache, we ‘did us best’. John and I determinedly lay in bed a while this morning to rest our hearts, souls and bodies. Mum also lay in bed to rest her 94 years. After a heart-warming video-link to his walk in the park with the dog (which looked absolute bliss), Michael then videoed William on his ‘treasure hunt’ for Easter Eggs in the garden. This was closely followed by Paul sharing a brilliant clip of Freddie, squeaking with excitement at the vision of his Easter Eggs on the dining room table and the treasure hunt-to-be. Indescribable emotions – oh, dear, I’m all over the shop.
We may not have had the full annual family egg-rolling contest for real this year, but at our end I hard-boiled the eggs, and when they were cool enough, we three chez nous sat in the garden under the warmth of the sun, to decorate them. Mum thought it was great fun and entered the spirit of it with great gusto. She did a good job too, on the decorating, but personally, I think John’s was best. His egg was a ‘cool dude’, wearing sunglasses and everything.
We then set about the business of actually rolling the eggs down the ‘little hill’ in our garden, where the kids tobogganed and did roly-polys back in the day, and we now sing ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’ with the grandchildren. Mum thought it was a very big hill and gamely puffed her way to the top. John carefully explained the rules. We all duly chucked our eggs down the hill, round the swing and on towards the sleeper, which acted as goal. John arrived first to aim at goal but hit the post to shock all round; I fell short; but jammy old Mum hit the target bang on!! Wouldn’t you just know it??
The great excitement was filmed and shared. The Kenilworth Sleaths also made a very good effort and shared pictures of their eggs decorated with sparkly stuff, but no rolling. And we’re yet to have an update on the Sutton and Cambridge Sleaths’ efforts……
On a completely different note, another great excitement was also shared today. Not filmed or photographed, but audio recorded. So, what was it? Well, some of you may know that John has a project in the garage – a re-build job on a Lotus Elan Plus 2 (long story). When he bought it, he assured me that it was pretty much all there and didn’t need a lot of work. He’s right, of course, because today the engine did seem to be all there, and he was able to share the beautiful sound of it running. Such a thrill!!
The project, of course, is to help keep us interested when all else fails. Today, of all days, being Easter an’ all, we saw a glimmer of hope. Not only did the engine on the car start, but, as of 9 o’clock on 12 April 2020, we saw a slight reduction in deaths due to COVID-19 with 737; and the trend for infections may be beginning to plateau with 5,288 people proving positive for the darned virus. Still a lot and too many, but let us pray the plateau or downward trend continues.