Happy Easter!

I love Easter!

I love the excitement of a day that celebrates the resurrection of Christ, new life and in my mind at least, the official end of the winter.

We had such a fabulous day with my brother-in-law and my sister-in-law and her boyfriend, and ticked absolutely all the must-do-at-Easter boxes.

The morning involved hot cross buns covered with butter and homemade jam and gallons of tea (and a couple of sneaky choccy eggs) for breakfast, a trip to Church in glorious sunshine (arriving late as ever..oops), some rousing Easter hymns, then home for coffee and a completely brilliant Easter egg hunt/quiz (with proper questions and riddles and everything) devised by my sister-in-law, and a couple more chocolate eggs to keep us going until lunch.

Lunch began with drinks and tapenade and duck liver pate toasts, then a starter of salad and 'oeufs mimosa' (a very simple and delicious starter - Margot's very own eggs, hard boiled and cut in half, with the yolks removed, mashed with mayonnaise and replaced), slow roast lamb with roast parsnips, new potatoes and sauteed spring greens (and a lot of gravy and mint sauce), cheese and biscuits, apple and mango crumble and ice cream and the whole lot finished off with coffee and a serious attack on the Easter tree.  I managed to forget to take pictures, but at least you are saved the horror of pages and pages of food pornography...

We then sank into the comfy seats and quietly digested for the rest of the afternoon, buttons were loosened, eyes rested and herbal tea drunk.  We rambled through various topics, from childhood reminiscences to political debates, while my sister-in-law and I did some patchwork, and the boys kept careful tabs on the progress of the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race.  It was, all in all, quite the perfect Easter Sunday!