Today I was woken up with a knock on the bedroom door and 4 excited nieces came running in, it is Easter Sunday and we went into the backyard to look for eggs. I have strong memories of Easter, dad would always wake my brothers and I up bright and early. We’d be tucked up all cosy in bed in our pyjamas fast asleep on a cold morning, unaware of what’s going on, and the light would come on “RIGHTO! UP AND AT ‘EM!” and we’d be marched outside to go find the eggs. “It’s Easter again already?” we’d say confused, wiping sleep from our eyes there was no time to use the toilet, just put on the gumboots as we were pointed in the right direction into the ute. Blindfolds put on too, because this was no ordinary backyard Easter egg hunt. No, dad loved us so much he went to a lot of effort and made an extra special game of it. Oh the memories!
Sure, it would have been easier for us if it was in our own backyard, but that’s not as fun, he’d take us to an empty block of land that he’d designated the easter egg hunting land that he’d have previously fenced off, or as he called it “Easter Island”.
Head torches were sometimes needed too, yep, we’d be up so early to beat the other kids to it, there was no natural light yet! Always thinking ahead to beat the neighbourhood kids, I couldn’t wait to see the look on their faces when WE had all the chocolate! Even though we were up early and there was still dew on the grass, hunting for Easter eggs was made easier for us because dad had left little hints where to find them. He’d marked out little pegs or spray painted clues in the ground where they were buried. That’s why we had to be up so early because they were hidden so deep it would take a while to find them he’d say. But luckily for us he’d thought ahead, and gave us the shovels and pitchforks we’d need to dig for them. Hours would go by and we’d be looking for them with our tiny little frostbitten hands wrapped around a shovel that was twice as tall as us. Sometimes we’d be still looking and miss out on breakfast altogether. And school. Yep, it wasn’t just at Easter time, the games didn’t stop on holidays, our old man was the coolest! “Keep looking, you don’t want anyone else finding them!” he’d say with a loving grin on his face. And you didn’t want to stop because often it would rain and fill up the holes that you’d dug to try and find them. That’s why we had gumboots on, so we could stand knee deep in mud on a cold wet morning to find the eggs. I loved family activities like this. After a while, when he could tell we were getting weak – ironically a little bit of chocolate might have kept our energy up – dad would call in some help because he knew how much we loved chocolate, and so these guys would turn up in trucks to help us dig the holes because he said the eggs were hidden REAL DEEP in the ground, in the specific points he marked out for us to find. These guys weren’t very good at digging for eggs though, they’d always accidentally fill the holes up with cement and ruin our hunt! Then they’d put up some posts in those holes to remember where the eggs were, then weirdly some frames, and scaffolding and to secure off the area, others would do some brick work and then a whole house would eventually be put up and we’d be up every morning to help out on site at Easter Island and make sure the fortress to protect the buried chocolate would not be invaded… come to think of it, there were no eggs…
April Fools! & Happy Easter y’all!!
PS. Buy tickets to my show so that I can buy some chocolate. And bandaids for my shovelling blisters.
Tix: http://bit.ly/2FojWKm FB event: https://bit.ly/2Gj0ewl
PLEASE SHARE + TAG + TWEET + TELL YOUR FRIENDS
