Easter 1998 is one which will forever be imprinted on my mind. On Coronation Street Deidre Rachid had just been put in prison following her involvement with that evil airline pilot… in the real world, many parts of the country (including nearby Stratford-upon-Avon) were seriously flooding… and on the morning of Easter Sunday, my grandad had the heart attack which would result in his death a few weeks later. Whilst the date of Easter changes from one year to the next, for very many years afterwards my entire family were habitually depressed on Easter Sunday, unable to disassociate the feast day from my grandfather’s death. This year, by pure coincidence, Easter Sunday happened to fall on the same calendar date as in 1998, so this could have been a mournful Easter indeed, but instead I think it has probably been the happiest I can remember

For once I wasn’t actually terribly depressed on Good Friday. I was more on a euphoric sort of high, having survived my first week in London and knowing I had four days to catch up on my sleep and recover. I went to the hairdresser in the morning and had some much needed inches off my hair. No one – neither my family nor Babel – subsequently said anything terribly complimentary about the end result, but I was pleased with it and that’s all I’m bothered about

Easter Saturday I got up earlier than I would usually choose to at the weekend, because my sister had suggested that we bake an Easter cake. We used to bake a chocolate cake at Easter every year, but being honest I think this is another tradition which faded away after the death of my grandfather. We hadn’t done it for very many years anyway but because my mother had invited the entire family around for tea on Easter Sunday, it felt like it would be a nice idea. It was indeed very good fun, although there were a couple of sticky moments, and the sponge didn’t rise as much as we’d anticipated, perhaps because we’d used so much cocoa powder. Even when we’d made the filling and iced it, we felt like it wasn’t going to be big enough for 10 people, so we decided to bake some little Easter fairy cakes as well.

We’d literally just finished icing these when Babel arrived to pick me up. We’d decided to go to Nuneaton for the day, in order to get a feel for the place and decide whether we liked the idea of it being our future home. Apart from the fact that we struggled to find somewhere to eat and I managed to make Babel quite angry by my general slowness at reading maps, it was a thoroughly positive experience I can’t lie and say that Nuneaton has the ‘wow’ factor, but it’s a pleasant, unextraordinary sort of place, and based on what I saw on Saturday afternoon there’s nothing negative I can think of to say. The shopping centre was adequate, the suburbs seem prosperous enough, and it’s an awful lot more appealing than you’d think when you go past the massive gravel pits on the train

Our exploring finished, Babel and I headed to the cinema to watch ‘Knowing’, a film which I had wanted to see for a couple of weeks, after I saw it get a very positive review on BBC News 24. I don’t have a talent for choosing very good films sometimes, but for once I appear to have succeeded It tells the story of a Dad, played by Nicholas Cage, who’s little boy brings home a piece of paper covered in seemingly random numbers from school. The paper was put in a time capsule 50 years earlier by a little girl, then pupil at the school. One night after a few glasses of whiskey, the father realises that the numbers represent the dates of all major world disasters which have happened in the last 50 years, including the location coordinates and the number of people who were killed. An exciting adventure story follows, as he tries to stop the remaining three disasters which have as yet not occurred… If you like end-of-the-world action movies with a few opportunities to cry, I definitely recommend it

Easter Sunday morning I went to Mass and was cheered to see how busy the church was, particularly how many young people were there. There seemed a better atmosphere than Christmas, even On Sunday afternoon my entire family plus Babel were invited to tea, so there was a bit of prior preparation and rearranging of furniture to be done. I was a little worried that Babel was going to be terminally bored, but if he was he hid it well and spent the afternoon being utterly charming to all my relatives, who now appear to like him more than I do My little cousin seems particularly fond of him, if the number of times he insulted him can be taken as a measure of fondness!

I’m very grateful to Babel for coming and making such an effort, and I’m also very grateful for all the lovely presents I received. Not only did I receive *two* Easter eggs (yippee!!), I also received a copy of ‘The Winter Queen’ by Boris Akunin, a book which I have been hoping to own for years. That was a very thoughtful present indeed And as if that weren’t enough, I later received a further present in the form of a massive framed photo of a mallard, with the date of our engagement written underneath I feel a little guilty about this because I had been with Babel when he bought the frame and had made a comment to the effect that I wouldn’t want a picture of anything *that* big hanging in my house. It *is* a very big picture, and we may struggle to fit it into our house when we eventually purchase one, but it is nevertheless a beautiful duck, and even if it were an ugly duck (is it possibly to have an ugly duck?!), it was a very sweet thought of Babel’s to create such a personalised present, and I do appreciate it

Today was the last day I’ll be spending with my family for quite some time, and we went out to the countryside to get some fresh air. We visited two different National Trust properties and between them managed to see two bunny rabbits, five baby ducklings and more lambs than you could shake a stick at, as well as hundreds and thousands of beautiful daffodils. It was all very refreshing, and Babel has had a lovely day with his little nephew too (although if I weren’t so tired, perhaps I should be jealous that he invited another woman ) so all in all I think that everybody has had a thoroughly enjoyable Easter

Back to London and the daily grind at the crack of dawn tomorrow, of course, but I do have a little something to look forward to as I’m having a catch-up dinner with someone I’ve pretty much lost touch with of late, so that should be fun

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