I organised an Easter Saturday morning get together for some friends. Really a picnic in the park. But of course, it was Easter, and so the repressed party hostess in me wanted this to become an “Easter Egg Hunt”. I bought a big bag of very small chocolate eggs, and planned to hide them around the little park before anyone turned up.

But of course, as it always seems to be, I ended up being quite late due to a whole series of minor domestic realities. You know, toddler tantrums, spilt milk, a grazed knee, a phone call. By the time I got off the phone with my favorite Auntie, I had literally only minutes before the official start time. I left my kids with my husband at the house, and ran over to the park with the bag of eggs.

So there I was, skipping around the park like an Easter Bunny, sprinkling little foil wrapped eggs around the swings, the trees, the benches, and along the little creek.

But, I don’t want you to imagine I was skipping gracefully around, like a magical creature from a fairytale.

I was running around like a MAD WOMAN! I was muttering to myself, tripping over, spilling eggs, picking them all up again, swearing as I stood on some, etc. Totally ungraceful.

And then it occurred to me that I was actually littering in the park. Doh!

I felt so guilty as I left the park.

I returned only a few minutes later with my family, and then other families arrived, and when the kids started to notice the eggs, they went crazy!

The Hunt was on!

But then it went wrong. In only the few minutes the eggs had been lying on the grass, the sun had melted them into a soft mush, and the little kids were grabbing their egg collections so hard the chocolate was squishing out onto their hands and clothes.

Double Doh!

So there were some disappointed kids, and I felt pretty embarrassed, but the other mums, God love them, were just like ” Well, lets just wipe your hands clean shall we darling?”…and pretty soon everyone was eating food and chatting and kicking balls and playing chasey. And as one Dad pointed out to me…it wasn’t like any of the kids were actually going to suffer from chocolate deprivation this weekend.

Okay, emergency over. I relaxed, and had a great time sitting talking with the other Mums about the Dads, who stood in a group a little way away, kicking balls and talking about the Mums.

So it all worked out well in the end!

(But I did make my husband walk around the park picking up all of the squished eggs before we left.)