Phew, we have reached the Easter Holidays. As always the final week of term was chaos with our normal hectic lifestyle being exacerbated by the need to create Easter Gardens, Easter Cakes, Easter jars filled with sweets and, of course, Easter Bonnets.
I'm afraid I tend to err away from the traditional bonnet covered with tissue paper flowers and eggs. I have to blame my mother for this. I remember the 'bonnets' she created for us as children. The Easter Bonnet parade at school was a big thing. It happened in the Town Hall and we had to walk down a cat walk one by one, like supermodels! Mum's ideas were extraordinary. There was scrambled egg on toast made out of an enormous piece of sponge painted brown, with smaller chunks of foam piled on top and painted yellow. As you walked along the toast boinged up and down. There was Humpty-Dumpty-sat-on-his-wall, that kept sliding off the head, wall and all! The enormous boiled egg, made the year my sister was born. Mum gave the job of bonnet making to our Nanny who had never used paper mache before. She covered the balloon so thickly in newspaper and floury glue that mum confesses she was rather worried I wouldn't survive as my head wobbled under the weight. And the infamous (in our family) fried egg - akin to Little Miss Splendid's hat in white and yellow. Despite Mum's originality she complained we never won, apparently it was always the Bank Manager's daughter with the traditional bonnet.
I've convinced my children it's not the winning that matters, but the taking part and they are happy to sport their own variations. Inspired by the fried egg of yesteryear our Little Girl made a dainty Fried Egg Fascinator on a paper plate (using an old fruit bag as some chic netting) and Boy took a leaf out of Mr McGregor's garden and had Peter Rabbit on a cabbage on the top of his head. They may not have won, but they were certainly easy to pick out during the Parade.
