Jonola14

EASTER EGG HUNT 2008

Easter was very early this year and won’t ever be this early again apparently, well not in our lifetimes. So between the spells of wet weather, last year’s Cook family annual Easter Egg Hunt winner, Carole, trudged out to the back garden with 28 eggs and hid them all amongst the shrubbery.

As we lined up for the start of the hunt, Carole stood up and announced that this year’s hunt was not about the volume of eggs collected, but the number of points that the size of the eggs represented. And that the hunt was effectively a Harry Potter style game of Quidditch. The explanation was difficult for me, having never read any of the Harry Potter books, so she might as well have been talking in a little-known Dutch dialect for all I understood, but here’s what I got from it. Large eggs were known as Korfles and were worth five points, small eggs where called Badgers and valued at ten points and there was one golden egg worth fifty points called the Golden Snidge. There was also a special ball called a something-or-other that was in play at all times and if you got hit with it, you were disqualified from the hunt for a full minute and had to spend the duration of that penalty period standing on the starting step. For the sake of this post, let’s say this ball was called a Schnark.

To be honest, I had no idea what she was waffling on about, but I guessed the general gist was to go out and find Easter eggs, especially the gold one.

I made a pretty good start and my pile of eggs began to grow in size, some of the old favourite hiding places had been used again, and some inventive locations were also being used for the first time (under an innocuous-looking pile of leaves for example). If it had been a game of finding the most eggs, I would have been winning.

Former organiser TC then threw a spanner in the works. He got me with the Schnark and I had to spend an agonising minute on the step whilst the other players continued the hunt. But the final eggs were simply not being found. And the Golden Snidge was nowhere to be seen. Ben wasn’t in the running and TC, Jane and Olivia were struggling, but Sophie was matching me for eggs and I needed to find that Snidge to get my name on the 2008 trophy.

After a barren spell of no eggs being found, Carole held a regroup on the step. There were about half a dozen eggs left to be found, and I had the Schnark in my hand. The plan was so cunning you could paint it green and call it a stoat. Once the regroup speech was over, and thanks to everyone being in the close vicinity, I would get everybody with the ball and have a free minute to search the grounds. Pure genius.

“According to my list there are three in the front and three in the back, and they’re all close to the paths” Carole announced, giving us all a clue as to the whereabouts of the missing eggs. Sophie dashed off, a rare idea coming into her head and as the group began to split, I threw the Schnark to instigate the most cunning plan since camouflaged trousers. To my horror, Carole then added “and the Schnark is no longer in play”. I was distraught. The plan was ruined, my game totally disrupted by an appalling refereeing decision and, despite my protests, the ruling was upheld, the Schnark was useless.

The eggs gradually showed up, but not the Golden Snidge. It all came down to the simple fact that if either Sophie or I found the Snidge, we’d win the hunt. I trotted off to the Wendy House and searched in vain. No Snidge in the log-pile, no Snidge behind the stack of paving slabs, an egg in the Wendy House had been found there already so the Snidge wouldn’t be there, so it must be somewhere I hadn’t yet thought to look.

There was a stone plant tub with some tiles on the top and stones dotted around the top. It looked heavy. I lifted the tiles on the left hand side of the tub. No Snidge. DAMMIT. I wandered round the corner to try to uncover another as yet unthought-of hiding place when there was a shriek of joy from Sophie. She’d found the Golden Snidge and won the hunt. I was gutted and cursing the decision to disengage the Schnark, that was the defining moment. I’d lost the hunt again, but worse than that I’d lost it to my sister. She would be unbearable.

And then came more bad news. The tiles I’d moved on the left hand side of the tub revealed no Snidge, but had I moved the tiles on the RIGHT hand side, the Snidge would have revealed itself and I would have won the hunt. I kicked myself for not being more thorough. An amateurish mistake for such a seasoned Easter Egg Hunt professional like myself. Disaster. Second place. Screw second.

As this year’s winner, Sophie is responsible for organisational duties in 2009. God help us. No doubt there’ll be a Barbie theme or something equally child-like and all the eggs’ll be pink. Oh good.