After my very negative experience of catching the bus, I finally arrived in Leicester at around quarter past one and made my way to my boyfriend’s place of work. One of his colleagues had agreed to come in early so that we could go to lunch and I could still manage to get back to Brum at a reasonable time for tea, so I’d bought him some chocolate as a thank you. My boyfriend said he had to do some washing up, so I followed him into a little room with a big sofa and some computers which seemed to be attached to a kitchen. I noticed vaguely that there was a pile of Faster eggs and a couple of big ducks on the sofa, but didn’t pay particular attention to them. I assumed that either the staff had been buying presents for their bosses, or the bosses had been buying presents for their staff, but either way I didn’t really give it a second thought.

Anyway, eventually my boyfriend came out of the kitchen and made some sort of comment which I understood as being to the effect that we ought to decorate my room like this. I was a bit perplexed as I wasn’t particularly a fan of the colour scheme and couldn’t recall any conversation which would have given the impression that I was. I indicated that perhaps that wouldn’t be a terribly good idea, and my boyfriend said that no, he meant having ducks sitting round it. I felt more kindly disposed to that idea and he asked me how many ducks I had. I’m honestly not sure of the answer to that question, but I do remember a Lenten exercise we once did at secondary school where we had to donate a certain amount of money each day depending on criteria which were pulled out of a hat. One day we had to give a penny for every soft toy we had in the house and I remember that I had to donate several pounds, so I guess I must have at least a couple of hundred Not all ducks though, a lot of them are bears and rabbits to which I am also quite partial

I don’t quite remember exactly what was said next as I soon descended into a confused sort of blur, but it transpired that the pile of things on the couch was my Easter present I was highly perplexed; it looked like at least three people’s Easter presents and I couldn’t work out which bit of it was mine! There were no fewer than THREE Easter eggs, and two of the biggest, most gorgeous fluffy yellow ducks which you have ever seen in your life I was absolutely totally shocked so that I temporarily appeared to lose the power of speech and couldn’t do much more than stammer an incoherent thanks. It seemed impossible to believe that it could all be for me…

But it appears that it was Or, at least, I have run off back to Birmingham with it all in carrier bags before my boyfriend changed his mind I don’t think I have ever had so many Easter eggs before in my entire life. In fact, I know I haven’t, because my parents refused to buy me a big egg as a child, prefering instead to fill a cardboard egg shaped container, decorated with rabbits in the DDR, with mini eggs and the like. My maternal grandparents always gave me money for Easter rather than chocolate, my aunt didn’t give chocolate on principle because she’s been on a permanent health kick for the last twenty years, and my great aunt for as many years as I can remember has bought me ill fitting T shirts designed for menopausal women from Marks and Spencers. So the only eggs I ever used to get were from my paternal grandmother in the now distant days when she was able to leave the house, from my godfather on the irregular occasions when he remembered that I existed, and latterly from my previous boyfriend with whom I used to exchange eggs every year. So yeah, three eggs is overwhelmingly exciting and I think I’ll have to share them round the rest of the household rather than eat them all myself

By far the best present is the ducks though. It’s wrong to have favourites with ducks of course but one of them in particular is incredibly cute and I think I am going to call him Billy. The other one has a very endearing tuft of yellow hair on the top of his head and so I’m currently debating whether or not I can call him Tufty, or whether I need to be more imaginative, seeing as that name already belongs to the real life duck I am sponsoring.

In any case, they are both totally adorable, as is my rather wonderful boyfriend who I still can’t quite believe went through the humiliation of walking into a shop and emerging with a great big yellow fluffy creature I love him very much; obviously regardless of whether he buys me Easter presents, but what he’s done is really sweet of him and gives me a welcome excuse to make all other females of my acquaintance feel nauseous by telling them at great length how amazingly fantastic he is. Thank you Babel, I’m very lucky to have you