The thrills of Easter grandparenting

Ah, Easter, Easter. The great feast of the Christian year. When the followers of Christ eat chocolate to celebrate his sacrifice to redeem mankind from original sin.

As it happens, this year wasn’t just about chocolate. It seems that rocket ships are part of the Easter festivities too. As apparently are games played with Velcro rackets and Velcro balls that stick to them. At least, judging by what the grandkids found when they went looking in the woods for the gifts left for them there by the Easter Bunny (a curious figure for which, in my admittedly rather cursory reading of the New Testament, I’ve not found any scriptural basis).

Even the date on which said hunt in the woods took place was (how shall I put this?) a little unorthodox. I mean, there was a time when the dating of Easter was the kind of question over which accusations of heresy might fly, in circumstances when such accusations could prove seriously career limiting. Terminally career limiting. 

It seems this isn’t a problem in our times when entertaining grandkids of five (Matilda) and three (Elliott, though he was all but four). Church authorities all agree that, however controversial the actual date might be, Easter would always fall on a Sunday. In 2025, however, that was the day their parents would be taking Matilda and Elliott home. So instead we celebrated Easter Wednesday for which, to say the very least, there is no liturgical authority.

The kids had been with us for some days. We’d been to the woods several times, walking the dogs or just playing hide-and-seek. That’s a game they love, though I have to confess I’m still not convinced that Elliott has fully grasped the notion of ‘hiding’.

Matilda counting for hide-and-seek

Elliott still needs to do some work
on the notion of being ‘hidden’

While in the woods, whenever we reached the place where the Easter Bunny had done its work in previous years, Matilda would explain to me that ‘this is where we’ll be looking for the Easter Eggs’. Indeed, on the Tuesday she even explained to me that it was where we’d be looking for the eggs ‘tomorrow’.

Old traditionalist that I am, I patiently and, I hope, compassionately, explained, ‘no, it can’t be tomorrow. Don’t you mean Sunday?’

‘No, it’s tomorrow. Mummy and Mamama said so.’

Well, I wasn’t going to argue with a decision backed up with the authority of a mother and a Mamama (the usual name for grandmothers in Danielle’s native Alsace) and, indeed, it turned out that Matilda was right. The very next day, the annual mystery repeated itself. Mummy and Mamama disappeared into the woods and, coincidentally, it was during that brief disappearance that the Bunny did its work. They must have been keeping that busy rabbit under close observation because they phoned to tell me its work was done the very moment it was.

Out we went, the eager search party, ready to find treasure. And boy were expectations fulfilled. There was lots of chocolate, most of it apparently Swiss, another one of those curious coincidences because Danielle (Mamama) had been to Switzerland only the previous week. 

Matilda, Elliott and Mamama hunting for Easter eggs
Elliott’s holding the Easter rocket toy

It was there that we also found the rocket toy I mentioned before (in the photo, Elliott’s holding it upside down, a stance with which I imagine Elon Musk would seriously disagree). Not far away was the Velcro racket and ball set. 

The Hello Easter book

Also in the vicinity was an Easter book, with the proud title ‘Hello Easter’ in English, a thoughtful gesture by the Easter bunny, given that the hunt was taking place in Spain. As it happens, Elliott and Matilda are equally at home in Spanish, but we like to think of our family – their family – as being primarily English-speaking, so it was good of the bunny to provide the book in that language.

Max ‘helping’ with the Easter egg hunt

I was also pleased to see that Max, our Podenco dog, got into the mood of things, wandering around with the kids on their search. Although I can’t swear that this actually provided what you could strictly call help, at least in terms of finding eggs or toys, it was a great way of confirming the continued improvement of relations between him and the grandkids. You may remember that when he first joined us, his apparent disquiet with them, sometimes leading to rather sinister growling, had made us wonder whether we could keep him at all. It’s wonderful to see how well they’re all getting on now: Matilda and Elliott have taken to giving Max treats (just for the record, let me quickly add that they give them to Luci and Toffee, the toy poodles, too). They even like to keep Max supplied with food or water, a task they undertake with great dedication. That, you can imagine, is a sure way of winning a dog’s deep attachment.

Matilda providing Max with water

Elliott too has made a friend of Max

Just to wrap up their stay with us, we even took the kids to the beach the day before they left. It was April and a little cold for swimming. Elliott, however, was happy to wander into the water at least up to his knees, as long as he could keep a firm hold of Granddad’s hand. He also returned to his earlier pastime of trying to transfer sand from the beach to the sea as though, like Lewis Carroll’s Walrus and Carpenter, he was inclined to weep ‘to see such quantities of sand’, and felt like them that ‘if this were only swept away, it would be grand’. 

Elliott happy to take to the water
as long as he had hold of a hand

Elliott transferring the beach to the sea

Matilda transferring water to the beach

What’s more, there was a good stiff breeze, and that provided plenty of fun, since we’d brought kites for both grandkids.

Let's go fly a kite: Matilda leads the way

All in all, I’d say, the day went well and provided a fitting conclusion to a highly successful visit.

Sheena (‘Mummy’) has also been
adopted by the dogs (Luci here)

Easter grandparenting

With the grandkids due to visit us again at the weekend, my mind naturally wanders back to Easter, when they were with us last.

Easter! School was out, giving the grandkids a perfect opportunity to visit us in Valencia where, as they run no risk of forgetting, ice cream gets served daily. And to have all the fun that Easter itself provides.

Part of the fun of an Easter visit...
Escher painted hands. So why shouldn’t Elliott paint his?

Easter, as we all know, is the feast of chocolate, with some egginess, bunniness and lambiness thrown in. Just like Halloween has nothing to do with the eve of All Saints Day, but everything to do with pumpkins along with whimsical and only slightly sinister costumes. Or Christmas has nothing to do with the arrival on earth of the prince of peace and redeemer of mankind and everything to do with a large jovial fellow in a big white beard and a red suit, travelling by flying sleigh drawn by reindeers and bringing – the best bit! – gifts, gifts, gifts.

There are those, the more purist among us, who haven’t quite got the Easter message. They think it’s to do with the death and resurrection of the son of God, gaining the redemption of mankind by his own sacrifice. Well, this is a slightly odd view, as the French philosopher Diderot pointed out, since God ordained the suffering of mankind (you know, after that nasty business with the apple in the Garden of Eden) and Christ is himself God, so what we’re being asked to believe is that God sent himself to earth to suffer and die to save mankind from the punishment he had himself decreed for it.

Anyway, to settle all doubts in the matter, I’m glad to say that I have here the very passage from scripture that justifies the much more widespread interpretation of Easter. I confess that it doesn’t figure in any of the four gospels and, indeed, it’s a little obscure where exactly in holy writing it appears, but please read it and I’m sure you’ll agree with me in attributing the appropriate authority to it:

And thus spake he, ‘go forth and discover one of the bunny kind, and let him travel wide and far among the woods, and there find secret places where chocolate may be left so that only they who are diligent will find it, and that chocolate shall have forms various and diverse, as of eggs, but also of creatures of the woodland or the farm, as perhaps other bunnies or hens or lambs, and with them shall be concealed also forms of creatures long gone that are of the kind known as dinosaurs, but these shall be made of plastic’. 

Well, we took the grandkids into the woods and, lo and behold, hidden in the trees, they found various chocolate items, in the form mostly of eggs but also of bunnies or hens and, wonder of wonders, in an eery coincidence given the scripture I’ve just quoted, dinosaur toys made of plastic. I will admit that they had a little guidance in their quest. When my son, their father Nicky, and I showed up with them, Sheena their mother and Danielle their grandmother were already there and they provided helpful hints to direct the kids’ attention to the places most likely to contain anything worth finding.

Look what we’ve found...

The kids had a great time and, thanks to some strict rationing applied by Danielle and Sheena, sickness was avoided.

I’m glad to say that dinosaurs were not the only members of the animal kingdom that Matilda and Elliott met while they were with us. Nor were all those creatures made of plastic. They had a fine session with living animals of the equine kind (sitting on them) and one of the canine persuasion (to be handled with care).

The horses (well, ponies) provided them with what was in fact their second outing as riders. We’re now looking at where to sign them up for something a little more sustained in the way of training when they’re with us for a slightly longer time and can take advantage of it. But in the meantime, even if all they were doing was having a bit of a wander around on ponies being led by a kind and pleasant pair of instructors, they enjoyed themselves enormously.

Even better than plastic dinosaurs

As for the dog, this was the occasion they first met Max, our latest addition to the household, as I’ve described before. That was just a tad more fraught. Max, a recent recruit from a shelter for rescued dogs is a podenco, the classic Spanish breed, much prized by hunters, but only for a season or so, until they decide they’re no use, or no use any more, and abandon them somewhere by a roadside far from home. 

During such an existence, the dogs don’t get much exposure to kids. So when poor old Max met these two little bundles of speed and – how shall I put this? – un-quietness is perhaps the most tactful term, he had no idea what to make of them. He decided, as most animals do faced with something unfamiliar, that they might well be a threat. So he growled and even made a less than friendly move towards them. That’s not to say that he did anything that caused any harm, just that he suggested he might.

So there’s some training to be done. Though I don’t want to leave you the impression that the first encounter was all bad. There was joy too, especially over walking him, which Matilda and Elliott did together. 

Walking the new dog

Much to his pleasure and theirs.

Black Friday and our sad mindset this side of the Atlantic

Black Friday is upon us.

It’s particularly remarkable on this side of the Atlantic. The Friday is black in the US because people are recovering from the excess of the Thanksgiving celebration the day before, or just need their morale boosted in the down that follows the high of a feast. Though behind that worthy goal lurks also the rather baser desire to make a lot of money by a day of sales in the shops.

In England, we don’t have the feast. We just have the Black Friday. The depression, in other words, without the celebration that led to it. But it’s still a wonderful commercial opportunity. Or at least shopkeepers hope so.

The problem arose because of the increasing disappointment of Christmas. This is the second most important feast of the Christian year. Believers worship the birth of Christ in December just as at Easter they celebrate the redemption of man through his agonising death followed by the miracle of his resurrection. Birth at Christmas, the even more glorious rebirth at Easter. .

Clearly, celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace is a time for quiet reflection on the nature of God’s relationship to Man, the sacrifice of his incarnation and later death in pain for us all, and so forth. Where “so forth” covers over-indulgence in food and, above all, drink as well as the commercial miracle of a splurge of spending in the shops. Why, a great many retailers depend on Christmas for the bulk, if not the entirety, of their profits for the year.

Such are the benefits of a profound immersion in the spirit of Christian charity and restraint. An excellent arrangement. Serving God and Mammon, otherwise known as win-win.

Although it’s not that wonderful any more.

Britain has seen earnings falling for a decade already. There’s no sign of that ending any time soon, particularly following Brexit. Eventually, inevitably, loss of earnings power had to have an impact on spending patterns. Christmas just isn’t what it once was. Shops can’t count on it any more.

The answer was to find a way of incentivising expenditure at another time of year. And why not just a few weeks before? Adopting Black Friday seemed the obvious solution.

But we took it over without Thanksgiving. Meaning we have the depression not the celebration. The hangover without the party. 

What’s more, we don’t seem to be satisfied with just a single day of it, which after all is what the word ‘Friday’ would seem to imply. Oh, no. Ocado, which kindly delivers us our groceries, has gone for a long weekend of Black Friday. 

Ocado:
Black Friday from the 23rd to the 27th

And Debenham’s, the great department store, has gone for a whole week.

Black Friday week at Debenham's

This all seemed terribly British. After all, we are a nation steeped in the Protestant tradition. That teaches us that we are all, or nearly all, damned whatever we do, and life is a vale of tears. So when we take on a tradition from the US, why not take on the bleak and dismal bit, leaving out the part that might actually lift our mood?

But it’s not just British. I was in Italy over the last few days, and I noticed that even that great bastion of Catholicism has caught the Black Friday bug. Indeed, they too, perhaps out of increasing desperation over sales falling there as they are here, are wildly extending the understanding of ‘Friday’. In Turin, they’re going for a Black weekend.

Black Weekend in Turin

Maybe it’s a European phenomenon, not just a British one. Are we so short of confidence in our ability to emulate transatlantic flair and dynamism that we punish ourselves by taking on their harsher customs, and use them to try to dig ourselves out of our economic difficulties? Seems a bit of an indictment.

A sad thought. One to while away a Black Friday. As an alternative to spending the day in the shops.

Easter message in a Christian country. That doesn't much like foreigners. Especially if they're in trouble

David Cameron did us a kindness in Britain last week, by sharing his thoughts on Easter in this essentially Christian country.

Easter is not just a time for Christians across our country to reflect, but a time for our whole country to reflect on what Christianity brings to Britain. All over the UK, every day, there are countless acts of kindness carried out by those who believe in and follow Christ. The heart of Christianity is to ‘love thy neighbour’ and millions do really live that out.

Such attitudes reflect a long tradition in this country. A thought which brings to mind a news story I read the other day.

A 25-year-old German woman, Theresa Weiss, was strapped in a seat of a Dutch air liner at Croydon last night after the immigration authorities had decided that she could not remain in England.

With her two-year-old daughter she landed at Croydon from Frankfort. After officials of the Immigration Office had investigated her passport and communicated with the Home Office, she was told she would have to return immediately.

She became hysterical and was attended by the airport doctor. It was decided that she should be taken on board the last ‘plane to Holland. While waiting for the departure of the ‘plane she escaped from her escort and ran in front of a taxi-ing air liner. One of the airport ground staff ran forward and dragged her to safety. Special Branch detectives and other police officers then took charge of her.

It was with considerable difficulty that she was urged into the ‘plane, and she was strapped into her seat, while her child was placed in charge of a stewardess.

Now as you read that story, you may have realised from some of the details that it wasn’t very recent. It isn’t. It comes from The Guardian of 17 August 1939.

That woman was a German refugee from the Nazis. The Neville Chamberlain Tory government sent her back to Holland. If she was sent on, back to Germany, one doesn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out what her fate would have been. Hers and her terrified two-year-old daughter’s. 

The fate Christian Britain felt Theresa Weiss deserved
Along with her two-year old daughter

But even if the Dutch let her stay, she wouldn’t have been safe for long. Less than a year later, Holland fell to the Nazis and Theresa Weiss would have been back at their mercy. Along with the daughter who may have seen her third birthday, but I suspect never saw her fourth.

As part of his Easter message, David Cameron also spoke strongly for those who face the risk of murder for their beliefs.

And as we celebrate Easter, let’s also think of those who are unable to do so, the Christians around the world who are ostracised, abused – even murdered – simply for the faith they follow.

Britain is committed to protecting and promoting that right, by standing up for Christians and other minorities, at home and abroad.

Of course, it could be objected to me that Theresa Weiss’s misfortune occurred long before Cameron was even born. So in case anyone believes that these wonderful traditions have died, let’s glance at The Guardian of 4 August 2013.

A coroner who oversaw the inquest into the death of the Angolan deportee Jimmy Mubenga has issued a highly critical report that raises a series of concerns about the way the government and private contractors deport people from the UK.

Mubenga, 46, died after being restrained by three G4S guards on board a plane at Heathrow airport that was bound for Angola in October 2010.

It would appear that we may love our neighbours as Cameron claims, but we’d rather they didn’t come calling for help, any more now than in the 1930s. Samaritans who prefer not to cross the road. With UKIP virulently campaigning against every foreigner legally or illegally in this country, and riding high in the polls, don’t expect any great change soon.

So how open was the door? Ever?

Britain’s a Christian country. With a Christian Prime Minister. And a great Easter message.

Time of resurrection as the blossom blooms

It’s that time of year again. A glorious moment, far too short, but all the more wonderful for producing such a quick-burning blaze of colour.

Ornamental cherry on a Luton street

Yes, It’s cherry blossom time. The Japanese formally celebrate it, with millions pouring out into the parks to picnic under the cherry trees as the blossom falls on their heads which must be marvellous and, no doubt, into their rice balls and sake, which must be less so. 

Japanese cherries in bloom in Washington DC

Of course, the Japanese particularly admire their own cherry with its deep pink blossom. And they have every reason: it’s a beautiful tree. I

t does them credit that they’ve had the generosity to share it with the rest of us. They apparently made a formal gift of the tree to Washington DC, the US capital, but the rest of us get to enjoy it too.

Japanese cherry on a Luton street corner

Luton, where I live, also has a few spectacular examples out there, doing their bit to enliven the seediest of streets.

Cherry in my office car park

Even the car park at my office, hardly the most romantic or picturesque of locations, changes into a place of wonder and beauty at this time of year. Not with Japanese cherries but the ordinary variety is pretty spectacular too.

It’s a miracle repeated yearly, as the trees bloom all over the northern hemisphere. No surprise that it’s a season full of festivals and celebrations even outside Japan. Whether it’s the feast of Babylonian Ishtar, goddess of sex and fertility, or her Semitic counterpart Astarte, the feasts in earliest days of western civilisation were around now. As, today, are modern Jewish Pesach and Christian Easter.

There are many who argue that this coincidence of festivals proves how false they are. All that Christianity has done, they argue, is arrogate to itself a pre-existing feast. After all, the Christians have taken over the eggs and bunnies too, associated with the older festivals, but completely unconnected with the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ.

All of which makes perfect sense to me. After all, we even call the feast Easter, a name clearly derived from the Anglo-Saxon Eostre, worthy descendant of Ishtar and our very own fertility goddess.

On the other hand, all I have to do is look around that blaze of blossom, yearly produced again despite its death the year before, to feel that it’s hard to imagine a better time of year to feast a Resurrection. What could possibly symbolise it better?

So believe in the Christian story or not, worshipping a fertility goddess of one cult or another, or following no faith at all – have a great Easter.

And enjoy the blossom.

More Luton Japanese cherries

Happy Easter. After all, this ought to be the big day in the Calendar...

So here we are at Easter again. 

It always amuses me to see the attitude of our Western allegedly Christian societies to this, in principle the greatest festival of the year. Or at least, as a Westerner but no Christian – so half an outsider – I’m amused by the contrast between Easter and Christmas.

Easter always arrives in a quiet sort of way, without flamboyance, without fanfares. Christmas – well, like most people, I have the impression that the fanfares start earlier every year. My impression is the first intimations to appear in the shops in about late August.

‘In the shops’. Those are the key words, and it’s what makes Christmas so huge a deal: it’s the unrivalled celebration of commercialism in our thoroughly commercialised societies. That’s why the preparations can’t start early enough. If you’re trying to persuade people to part with their cash at unprecedented levels for things they don’t really want, and only to avoid your shop going straight down the tubes, then you need to get the advertising going fast.

Easter? What the heck. All you’re promoting really is some chocolate eggs, and I notice that the Cadbury variety, stuffed with some unpleasant white substance referred to as cream and masquerading as egg white, and a blob of even more toxic yellow gunk, are in the shops from January these days.

If anyone actually cared for the Christian message underlining all this stuff, they’d quickly realised that the key event, the one that spelled redemption, from the point of view of believers, was the one we celebrate this weekend: the crucifixion of the Messiah followed by his triumphal resurrection.

Dalí's view of the resurrection

I can’t claim to be a biblical scholar, so I may well have missed something here, but I don’t think either of these events involved many eggs, lambs or bunnies, whether of flesh and blood or chocolate, or even sugar.

In contrast to the execution and return of the Lord, his birth is merely a special instance of a pretty routine occurrence. So by their sheer scale of grandeur, you’d have to say that Christians have got the events completely back to front. Which probably reflects their view of the underlying values too: poverty, forgiveness, charity to all, explaining why so many ‘Christians’ find it easy to rally to politicians who champion wealth, intolerance and contempt.

If Christians meant it, they’d be out there making sure we all realised that Easter’s much the more important feast. Not an easy task, but did anyone ever claim Christianity was easy?

Of course, for the rest of us, we can just enjoy a long weekend. Even if this year, in Britain at least, we do seem to be getting a bit of Christmas at Easter. With snow on the ground, March is proving a lot colder than December ever was. And a lot of those lambs, far from gambolling in green meadows, have been frozen under snowdrifts.

Still, the break is welcome anyway.

Happy Easter, everyone.

Shalom! It's Easter

Good Friday, the celebration of a supreme sacrifice to save us all from the consequences of our own depravity. Also a break from work and, this year at least, it's coincided with glorious spring weather, making it difficult to maintain quite the solemnity many would feel the occasion merits.

In any case, like Denis Diderot, I’ve always had trouble getting my mind round the idea of God taking human form as his own son and descending to Earth to suffer and die in order to redeem us all from the terrible fate to which he condemned us in the first place. Still, I’m no theologian and probably lack the subtlety of thought to follow these intricacies.

In passing, I can't resist mentioning Diderot’s neatest statement on religion, when he pointed out that God is a father who sets great store by his apples and far less by his children.

My Jewish roots don’t help with coming to grips with this Easter business. Fortunately, a dear friend who happens also to be of Jewish extraction, is joining us tomorrow. I told her that I felt it right for Jews to get together to mark a weekend devoted to the most famous Jew of all.

‘Karl Marx came a good second,’ she replied.

Well, maybe. But wouldn’t the world be a much happier place if we were of a disposition to prefer Groucho to Karl for this relatively honourable position?

Promintent Jews down the ages

This reminds me of an old story appropriate to the season. My apologies to the many people who’ve heard me tell it before. I like to think it bears the repetition, but you can be the judge of that.

A Jew active in the City of London, whom we shall call Moishe (and you don't get more appropriate than that) became the close friend of an Irish colleague whose name was (naturally) Patrick.

They’d worked together for some time when Patrick said to Moishe, ‘you know, most weekends I go back to Ireland. It would be a great pleasure if I could persuade you to join me some time.’

Moishe was only too glad to accept the invitation and shortly afterwards they both travelled out to Patrick’s village.

Patrick was a generous host and ensured that Moishe lacked for nothing. Wonderful dinners, delightful conversations with friends and neighbours, a pleasant game of tennis, a lovely country walk, all was laid on for him. Until Sunday morning.

‘Moishe, my friend,’ said Patrick, ‘when I’m in the village, I’m rather expected to attend Sunday Mass. I hope you don’t mind if I’m out for an hour or so.’

‘Actually, Patrick,’ Moishe replied, ‘I’ve never been to a Catholic service. Would you mind if I joined you?’

Patrick was only too happy with the suggestion, as long as Father O’Connor agreed. At the church door, he immediately approached the priest.

‘Father,’ he said, ‘this is my friend Moishe, who’s not of our persuasion, but would like to attend this morning’s mass, if you have no objection.’

Father O’Connor had none and Patrick showed Moishe to a pew.

The Mass began. Shortly afterwards there was a ring on a bell and the collecting plate came round. Patrick reached into his pocket and put in a ten Euro note. Moishe, naturally, put in ten euros of his own.

A few minutes later there was another ring of the bell and round came the collecting plate again. Once more, Patrick put in ten euros, but Moishe had no ten euro notes left, so he put in twenty.

To his surprise, it wasn’t long before the bell rang once more and the collecting plate made a further appearance. Patrick had a third ten-euro note, but this time Moishe was obliged to put in a fifty.

By this time, he was beginning to find the experience expensively bought, but fortunately the Mass soon came to an end. As they were leaving the church, Patrick asked Moishe how he’d found the service.

‘Very interesting,’ said Moishe, ‘and in fact I’d be pleased to have the opportunity to ask some questions of your priest.’

Moishe got his chance on the way out.

‘Father O’Connor,’ he said, ‘let me get this straight. That Jesus Christ, wasn’t he a Jew?’

‘Why, yes,’ replied the priest, ‘he most certainly was, his whole life long.’

‘And all those disciples, weren’t they Jews too?’

‘Yes, indeed, now you mention it, good God-fearing Jews.’

Moishe shook his head. ‘You mean we started this business, and then let it get out of our control?’

Shabbat Shalom for tonight, and a happy Easter for the whole weekend.

Relocating the Poles, and a proverbial lesson about eggs

Getting a different take on an everyday saying can sometimes invest it with a far deeper, sometimes even surreal, meaning.

I was absolutely certain I recently heard a radio newscaster announcing that ‘the Poles are getting closer.’

Immediately I found myself thinking about the way that in many sectors, including agriculture, catering and the health service, Britain has recently become massively dependent on support from Poland. So moving the Poles closer sounds like it might be a good idea. It would be tremendously convenient if Poland could be brought alongside and, say, moored next to South East Kent. It would also make it easier to pop over to Cracow, a city I’m told is well worth visiting, though I’ve never been there.

Then I realised that the radio had been talking about the forthcoming general election and was therefore making a much more mundane point.

Today another completely different phrase was brought to vivid life for me. We’re close to Easter now, and Danielle and I have come to Edinburgh to spend the weekend with our son David, his wife Senada and our granddaughter Aya.

In case any of my readers are a little vague on the details of Christian liturgy and need this explaining, Easter is the most important event of the Christian calendar. It’s true that Christmas seems bigger, but that’s only because commerce has got behind it far more. Easter commemorates the moment when Christ was scourged with whips, had a crown of thorns jammed on his head to mock the claim that he was King of the Jews, and was then put to death by crucifixion, a particularly long and cruel form of execution.

For most people, that would be the end of the story, but for Christ it wasn't: on the third day, Christians believe he rose again from the dead, the key miracle in the entire belief system, promising eternal resurrection to all who have faith in him.

Death, pain, suffering, resurrection, redemption. Matters of weight and spiritual depth.

So what could be more natural than to celebrate this moment of acute poignancy by pigging out on chocolate eggs?

Our family is pretty heathen, but it likes eggs and it likes children. So Danielle decided that she was going to introduce our five-year old granddaughter Aya to one of the delights of her own childhood, painting eggs for Easter. A colleague of Danielle's lives on a smallholding so he kindly provided two goose eggs.

They had to be emptied before painting. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Danielle went on-line to check just how it should be done.

To be fair they blew the eggs rather than sucking them – they weren’t that keen on having their mouths full of raw egg – but, hey, let’s not be picky.

As David pointed out, what we had just witnessed was the internet being used to teach a grandmother to suck eggs.

Aya blowing a goose egg

...and her grandmother, having been successfully taught how