EASTER EGGS
We are endeavouring to be on our best
behaviour at this time of the year. We have disturbed memories, you see. Last
Easter weekend saw Beagle and me qualifying for Guests From Hell status.
Sunday morning we gathered
together our bi-national offerings (Italian olive oil and Cadbury’s Easter
eggs), rounded up the dog and tripped lightly downstairs to stuff it all into opposite ends of the
Chelsea tractor.
Trip was the
operative word. A litre of olive oil
goes a horrendously long way on a marble floor and takes the best part of half
an hour and most of the Sunday Times to mop up.
Hound was
subsequently inserted with some difficulty behind the dog-proof iron bars,
having picked up the scent of the eggs at 100 yards . I might also
mention at this juncture that Beagle’s personal vision of Paradise consists of
a large meadow dotted with rabbits (real, imaginary or chocolate,) and laced
liberally with fox poo.
We were thus a
little late starting out on the requisite trek to the country for the
traditional Easter Egg Hunt.
Technologically
Impaired husband watched with some scepticism as I deftly programmed my
girlfriend’s postal code into the GPS and then turned on the radio. Soothed by
the dulcet tones of Ms. Sat Nav, however, he relaxed sufficiently to obey her
instructions for once, instead of arguing furiously with her disembodied
directions at every crossroad. I sank
back to listen to the chewing-gum-for-the-ears braying of the Omnibus Edition
of the Archers. Something about the combined effect of these two acoustical
elements must have dulled our already
waning critical faculties. We had the motorway to ourselves and had made up for
nearly all our lost time as we swung triumphantly through the gates and up the drive
to our hosts’ magnificent residence.
Blindly obeying our
front and rear sensors, we parked expertly between a Land Rover and a Bentley
and began to unload.
Realisation hit the
pair of us more or less simultaneously. It was the wrong host. Wrong lunch
party. Wrong girlfriend. Wrong post code. Clearly there was an Easter lunch in
progress here too – witness the cars all over the drive. But not the one to
which we had been invited.
It is not an easy
feat to back a 4 x 4 silently out of a gravel drive with a Beagle howling to
get out for a sniff at one’s non-host’s lurchers’ backsides, but we managed it.
Except that having scrunched back up to the main road spitting gravel to left
and right, somehow the main gates had closed on us…..
The good news was
that I had, at least, chosen the right county, and after a highly apologetic
phone call to explain in graphic detail the tremendous traffic jams we were
encountering on the M20, we finally reached, as Ms. Sat Nav sexily remarked,
our destination.
Our real host had
been obliged to open an additional bottle of fizz which had clearly not overly
amused him. His guests were starving and pie-eyed. The cook was threatening to
resign as she watched her succulent pink lamb turning to strips of grey
leather. Beagle had an immediate fight with the house Labrador about who had
territorial rights over the last remaining smoked salmon canapé left on the
plate for Miss Manners. The children sulked throughout lunch refusing to eat
anything at all because they had been deprived of their Sunday morning egg
hunt.
I slipped out into
the garden as soon as coffee had been served and started to hide the eggs in as
many Beagle-proof places as I could find. This, I realise in retrospect, also
rendered them completely invisible and unattainable to anyone under the age of
15 or below 6ft in stature. The oldest child was four and a half, though with
the lungs of a thirty year old coloratura.
The score at the
end of the day was as follows:
2 yr old
girl………..three daffodil heads and a peony.
Older
brother……....two shiny flat stones, three pellets of goat droppings, one fir
cone, two lost golf balls,
Black Labrador…….
look of extreme guilt, four remaining mauled eggs. Estimated eight swallowed
whole complete with silver wrappings.
Beagle………………nowhere
to be seen. Later found in hen house consuming a raw omelette having rolled in
all the fox poo.
Him and Me………… a
fragrant and silent ride home.
