Why don't we jarp any more?

I have been to Oxfam to buy the vegan fairtrade Easter eggs, including some little ones for the Easter hunt.

The egg hunt may be one of those weird traditions that keeps going because we don’t want to disappoint our (now definitely adult) children and which they persist in requesting simply in order to humour us.

Some family Easter traditions we no longer observe, for instance, jarping.  Nigel’s Northumberland Grandmother was know as a “terror for jarping” – it involved hardboiling eggs and then using yours to whack other people’s – a bit like a game of conkers.  We also used to do egg-rolling – each person decorated a hard boiled egg and set it rolling down a hill (or in our case, the kids’ slide) and see which went furthest.

But wait – I think I can work out which family member is the true motivator for some traditions persisting and others not.

Looks like anything to do with boiled eggs got canned, whereas anything to do with chocolate eggs continues.

Somebody who dislikes hard-boiled eggs but likes chocolate.

Carenza!

God doesn’t have Good Taste

One of the best things about God is that he doesn’t have good taste.

We just visited Copenhagen with shops famous for Danish design.  All that pared-down, smooth-edged beige and grey!  Step outside however, and the contrast actually made me laugh.

What was on offer was ridiculous abundance – armfuls of white and pink cherry blossom, the million tassels of lime-green willow catkins, hosts of bulbs pushing up flowers of scarlet, yellow and purple.  

The first bees humming purposefully and brimstone butterflies flittering through.

Why are there so many yellow flowers at this time of year?  Is it in case we didn’t get the point?  The sun is back!

And the birds burbling incessantly like the cascade of a snow-melt river.

It is going to be the promise that is implied by this encompassing beauty which gets us through the dark moments of Good Friday as we remember Christ’s crucifixion. 

But it’s going to be Easter Sunday when we truly receive the message of the Resurrection – Christ rises up after death.  And all around us, the trees that have looked grey and dead through the winter, and the lifeless stretches of beige earth are suddenly dazzling and brilliant and overwhelmed with colour.

Doctor Pascoe

Since last November, there has been an element of suspense in the Harvey household.

When I started this blog, many moons ago, Pascoe was in the last year of his Biology degree at UEA, and applying for PhDs.

It went well and he went to work for Susan Rosser at Edinburgh University.

We missed Pascoe, being so many miles away, but thanked heavens for Skype.

His first couple of years, he settled into the work, but there was also evidence that he was taking full advantage of the cultural life of Edinburgh and the social life of a postgraduate student.

Over the last year or so, our impression has been that the balance has tipped decisively away from fun and towards PhD write-up, with regular break-outs climbing snowy mountains for the sake of sanity. (Which he doesn’t tell me about until afterwards – for the sake of MY sanity.)

Then in November, he handed his thesis in, landed a temporary job at the Edinburgh Genome Foundry and waited for his viva.

For a long time, not much seemed to be happening, then finally last Friday, we got the news he had passed with flying colours – only minor corrections. 

So now the time of waiting is joyfully over and life will move on again.  The only question is "What next?"

Celebratory doctoral meal