Happy Easter

I am always the first one up. I have evolved into an early riser over the years. We were late getting home last night, so I had to go and hide the eggs in the garden first thing this morning. I went out in my jammies and dressing gown (no neighbours to horrify). When I opened the kitchen door, our rabbit Jasper was sitting on the back step. Could it be that Jasper is the actual Easter Bunny? I picked up our floppy eared rabbit and returned him to his run. That run really needs to be replaced. It won't even keep the rabbit in anymore. If the rabbit can get out, then predators can get in.

This is a photo of Jasper (with Easter egg on top of his hutch). You can see the bricks I have placed to prevent his further escape.

I then went out and hid Cadbury's creme eggs and other treats in the garden for George to find. I learned early on to count them all out. This way, you're not faced with finding a nasty and ancient boiled egg in July or worse October. You have to keep looking until they're all accounted for. If you want to hurry things along, you can do "hot or cold" to help the searchers find the eggs more quickly.

Now that we have a dog, I am hiding the chocolate creme eggs UP. This way Polly won't find it and suffer chocolate or more specifically theobromine poisoning (very bad for dogs). I balance these dangerous goodies in hedges, young trees and other assorted shrubbery. The funny thing was that the Cadbury's creme egg that I balanced in the young walnut tree had bird pecks on it by the time it had been found by our youngest child! It had only been up in the tree a very short period of time (maximum 1 hour)! George had cried "Bird Flu!" and wouldn't eat the bird pecked egg. The Man of the Place had no qualms and it was gone in seconds.

It was warm and dry today. This is the third day in a row that has been dry. It meant that I could cut the grass!

Young George had been away for the past couple of days and got back late on Saturday night. He was up in Glasgow visiting one of his older brothers, Sean. They've been planning this visit for ages. George was SO excited about going up. It was all I could do to get him to eat in the days running up, he was so excited.

Henry and I had a glimpse at what life is going to be like in a couple of years when George packs his trunks and goes off to university. It turns out that Henry and I still like each others company. That's okay then. We pottered around the house and then went into Dumfries and then Carlisle in search of a new fireplace for the extension and a new lawnmower.

On Friday we went into Dumfries in search of the perfect fireplace. We went to a place that has an enormous showroom and hundreds of different styles of mantel pieces and cast iron inserts. We had agreed that we wouldn't have marble OR knotty pine. I did find one mantel that I liked quite a bit. It turned out that it was made out of MDF (medium density fibreboard) and veneer, not solid wood. No good for a real fire. On top of that, it wasn't really made very well. I was so disappointed. It would have done nicely. We went away empty handed.

Saturday morning it was time to tackle the new lawnmower purchase. We went down into England and Carlisle for this one. We found a good one pretty quickly. The young lad who sold it to us was SO charming. There was another fireplace business not far from the lawnmower place so we though we'd "pop in". Not only did they have a mantel that was perfect for the new living room, Henry and I agreed on it! (we rarely agree on when it comes to matters of personal taste) We ordered some slate to go under the fireplace too. It sure doesn't take long to spend £1000.

So, today after the Easter rituals have been observed I decided to give the new lawnmower its test run. What a joy it is to use a new, sharp bladed lawnmower! I raised the blades for this first cut. The lawn has been tamed again.

One weird thing that I found while mowing. There was some frog spawn in the lawn. I don't know why frogs might have done this. It got me thinking about evolution. It is my theory that the successful species who have loads of food and don't have to fight too hard to reproduce usually get phased out. Its the species that struggle and are forced to the margins of existence that survive. The frogs that are forced to lay their eggs in the grass rather than in the water are the frogs that evolve into something new.

I called The Man of the Place out to see this freak of nature. He promptly tossed the mislaied eggs into the pond muttering something about fiddling with natural selection and improving the gene pool by removing stupid frogs.

So, now the grass has been tamed by the shiny new Honda mower. Most of the tadpoles have hatched. The pond lily is throwing up new leaves. The chickens are laying very well. The daffodils are at their peak and we search the skies for the arrival of our swallows. All is right with the world, at least in our little corner of it.

It is my dearest wish that everyone has had a joyous Easter.