Earnest the Easter Wabbit

Hello everybody. My name is Earnest the Easter Wabbit.

I popped out of a giant sewing-machine shaped egg on Easter morning. I drank Russian Caravan tea from a porcelain cup before bounding off to hide for the Easter Egg hunt.

It didn't take long for someone to find me. I think my Japanese-designed linen outer gave me away. My Amy Butler gusset was completely hidden. Isn't gusset a lovely word? My creator loves that word. It smacks of old ladies and euphemisms.

But back to the task at hand. It could have been my spectacular ear that was spotted first. I dressed it in camouflage ribbons and laid it flat in the grass, but even the best-laid plans can come undone.

I'm very fond of my giant pom-pom tail. I like to waggle it when something particularly pleases me.

At full stretch I measure approximately 30 centimetres high. Let's not talk about my waist-to-hip ratio. Easter means chocolate, and lots of it, and that's all I'll say about that.

I have button eyes, I'm stuffed firmly with polyfil and I sit up all by myself. What a talented wabbit I am.

I deserve a burrow that's really special. If you let me come home with you I promise to nibble your ear and bring you chocolate carrots in the night, and whisper stories to you of faraway places ....

I choo-choo-choose the chocolate egg train

In Sydney yesterday, I finally realised that Easter is just around the corner.

And check out this gold Lindt bunny I saw yesterday near the office - I'm lucky (or unlucky, depending on your perspective ) to be located quite nearby a Lindt chocolate cafe, and this guy was flanked by lots of people handing out lovely little Lindt eggs, of which I ate far too many.

And see how big he is? That is a real live person in the background on the right. That's how big he is. He's a whopper. A big, gold, chocolatey whopper. Actually I think he's inflated with air, not whipped chocolate mousse, but we can dream, can't we?

There are a couple of reasons I love Easter, I think.

I'm not religious though, and I don't especially love chocolate above all things in the way that many women do (and My One True Love too, he eats more chocolate than any woman I've ever known).

But first - and foremost, I think - my birthday falls in April, and so as a child Easter always meant my birthday was just around the corner. And that was definitely something to be excited about. Birthdays! They're the only day that truly belongs to you. Even if the Easter holidays did often mean there was no one around to come to a party, so I hardly ever had a party on my birthday.

And secondly, Easter did mean chocolate as a child, and there was not a lot of chocolate or even non-specific sweet activity in my household when I was growing up.

This was undoubtedly a good thing, as I'm sure that if I'd been let loose on sweet things I'd have, shall we say, indulged my sweet tooth perhaps more than was healthy for me. But it did also have the short-term effect that whenever I had pocket money I would try to spend it on sweets, and I'm sure I developed a very unhealthy obsession with sugar for a while there until I learnt how to self-regulate.

But what I loved THE MOST about Easter was the egg train. Do you remember the egg train?

It was a cardboard train, just bought from the local supermarket I'm sure, that had individually foil-wrapped eggs in each passenger seat. And every egg was a bright colour, and we all know how much I adore bright colours. I know when Trinny and Susannah were out last week they deplored the lack of colour in Australian wardrobes, and I also know that if they'd had the pleasure to meet me, they could never have accused me of that crime.

I loved the egg train. I looked forward to it every year. I would measure out the eggs by day - slowly unwrapping the foil and smoothing it out until every last wrinkle in the rectangle was ironed out. And the way the foil smelt of chocolate! Coloured chocolate foil, that's what I'm talking about. The chocolate was important, but certainly, it was secondary too, to the glorious foil.

I loved the train for years, until finally it was surpassed by a Red Tulip egg I received when I was .... well, I must have been younger than eleven. That's how old I was when the Sister Of My Heart moved to Sydney, and I know that I used the Red Tulip packaging as a money box to save my Show money into, and that I took it with me when we went to the Show together the year that I was given it. So perhaps we were even in primary school.

I loved the yearly Show, with its showbags and animals and carnival rides, and the ghost train, and that Show (the one with the Red Tulip package as pseudo moneybox) was where the Sister Of My Heart introduced me to the phrase "shout", as in "I'll shout you a ride", which she duly did.

But the Show is another post entirely, let me not get carried away down the sideshow alleys of my memory.

This post is about coloured chocolate foil, and the fact that I'm now trying to find a cardboard train for my godson the Miniature Genius, who's coming to visit me in the arms of his mother, the Sister of My Heart, for the entire Easter break. Five whole unadulterated days of Easter holiday with them both - I can't wait!

So I must, must find the train for him. I want the train. I need the train for him. I choo-choo-choose it, to misquote the Simpsons. The train is an essential part of what Easter is all about. Where o where can I find a chocolate train??!!

Easter egg-spectations

Hello. My name is Toof.

I am a Humpty Dumpty gone slightly wrong.

My creator wanted to make a Humpty for Easter, seeing as how he is an egg and everything. She thought it would be a neat idea for her upcoming markets at Northcote (this Saturday 21 March) and then Thornbury (next Saturday 28 March).

But something went awry in the crafting of me. I turned out more like a tooth than an egg, I think. I'm a bit of a square. Next time she needs to make my head curve in a bit more.

Perhaps a little person will like me anyway. I'm made out of cuddly herringbone wool, and I'm stuffed very sturdily. I'm very good to hold onto.

And I have a nice pocket in purple polka dots at the front of me. That's for putting a chocolate egg into. If you give me one of your Easter eggs I promise to keep it nice and safe for you.

Or if you wanted, you could put your lost tooth in there and then the Tooth Fairy would know where to collect it from. That's a good idea, isn't it?

So maybe a little person will like me anyway, even though I'm only a tooth and not a real Humpty.

And here is my friend the rabbit. He's also for Easter. That makes him an Easter bunny!

He is reading the Australian Financial Review - he must be very clever. One side of him is made from lovely Jennifer Paganelli fabric in ice-blue and chocolate. And the other side is Moda Birds, I think.

And his big floppy ears are wonderful! I wish I had ears. But a tooth with ears would look funny. Mind you, I've got arms and legs though. So maybe ears wouldn't be too much of a stretch.

I like everything about this rabbit except his eyes. I'm not sure about his eyes. Mine are big and wide and friendly. But I think his black and white eyes make him look a bit scared. Like a rabbit in the headlights. Oh look, I made a joke!

Okay, I agree it was weak. But you have to remember that wit is not my strong point. I'm just a little toof after all.