EASTER

When I was a child, a long time ago, an Easter tradition at home was the Egg Painting Competition.

My mother would boil some eggs. When the hard-boiled eggs were completely cold, my brother, my four sisters and I, and occasionally some friends, would get down to the seemingly impossible task of converting the dull, inanimate shells into miniature masterpieces. We used food colouring, mainly, which we carefully applied with cotton wool and brushes.

Our creations usually consisted of heads: bald heads, funny heads, sad faces, animal heads, etc. We did, however, produce the odd ship or farmhouse.

When the paint was dry, we would rub the egg with oil to make it shine and protect the paint.

On Easter Sunday, during lunch, the eggs were judged by our parents and relatives and the winner of the painting competition was allowed to keep the winning example. This was followed by the "egg tapping" game. The rest of the eggs were shared out and each player hit another player's egg with his/her own egg. The winner was the holder of the last intact egg. The losers got to eat their eggs while the winner of the game was also allowed to keep his/her egg.

I don't think I ever won a single egg painting competition.... but I did manage to eat dozens of colourful eggs!