Eggs is nice!

Fractured blog writing is a direct result of the aftermath of the Catalan invasion! It was delightful having Toni’s relations and experiencing why child rearing is best left to other people! Today was the Washing Experience – nothing to write home about, I keep harping on about the number of machine loads of washing that I had to complete, but the key and magic word is ‘machine’: sorting and loading is hardly the hard work that I remember my mother completing with the single agitator top loading machine with a wringer. I also seem to remember a Flatley dryer – which was a heated metal box with wooden slats on which to drape washing. Now that was something to carp about!

I have also neglected the garden. The mini daffodils have finally given up the unequal struggle. We cannot complain about our money’s worth, but when daffs have gone, they’ve gone and so we have to find something as flamboyant to replace them. The lobelia is slowly establishing itself and the alyssum is not quite ready for planting. We are relying on pansies and violas for display and, at long last, a new trailing plant called ‘White Blizzard’ has yet to live up to its name.

We have problems with upwardly mobile magpies that see the vegetation of our front garden as a sort of IKEA on demand and are establishing their domiciles at our expense. Their favourite wall basket looks as though someone has been stamping through the flowers with baby boots! I shall replant with holly – that will give their omen laden presence something to think about.

Talking of thought, I was watering the garden (ever conscientious when I finally get started) when a disembodied head drifted along the swell of the garden fence and diffidently asked me about the house. It turned out that the head belonged to a lady who, with husband and child was looking at houses without the benefit of the house agent who was not available for viewing. This is an ominous piece of information which I will need to look into. Invited in, she was all expressions of delight, up to and including the pool in the back garden as it turns out that she has a (named) fish which has travelled with them and they were looking for a home for him too. It’s funny how an element in the house which is usually a negative one suddenly becomes a selling point!

We will have to see whether enthusiasm is translated into an offer. As they have already sold their house and they are under some time constraints to ensure that they have somewhere to live, it could work out very well. We will have to see.

The saga of the Easter egg continues. Toni having made the sweeping assertion with an airy wave of the hand that I could buy myself ‘any’ Easter egg, and with the injunction, ‘Choose one!’ ringing in my ears – I restrained my consumer impulses and said that I would wait for today and the inevitable reduction in prices before squandering his money.

Tesco’s did not let me down and, after a little searching, a disappointingly small selection of remaindered eggs revealed itself to my view. As I was watching, so the assistant was putting up the half price stickers. Rejecting with scorn the cheaper eggs I concentrated my attention on eggs which had originally cost £10 (well, £9.99) and were thus, refreshingly, reduced to £4.99. You were, as lascivious eyes drifted over ingeniously flamboyant packaging, seduced by the sheer show. So I decided to be more scientific about the whole affair.

Some people would obviously look at the different makes of chocolate on display and decide which one gave the greatest taste promise; some might look at what ‘extras’ might be tucked into the bulky packaging; others might be tempted to go for a more exotic make.

None of these is the correct approach. Tesco, very helpfully (and not a little shockingly) show how much per 100gms the eggs cost. I have already noted that the usual cost of chocolate at between 24 and 55 pence in its normal bar form, is magically translated into as much as more than four pounds in its egg form – a triumph of capitalism and commercialism. Hooray! Therefore, the correct approach is to look at the new amounts of price per 100gms and buy for quantity rather than the packaging. Using this criterion good old Cadbury comes out on top; to be specific, the dark chocolate eggs which is stylishly packaged as a cylindrical container containing a purple mesh covering ornamented with ribbon inside which is an egg, containing and egg containing small foil wrapped eggs with a small packet of candy covered eggs as the extra. And very tasty too.

I’m still waiting for my money from Toni to authenticate his grandiloquent gesture!

C’est la vie!