Tiddley-Bits tea

Tiddley-Bits tea

Monday 18 April 2011

{easter}

{via delish}
Easter was always a big holiday in our family. This year I'm heading to Toronto for Easter, to spend it with my sister and her family. The majority of Easters in recent years have been spent  at my 'home away from home' in the UK at my second cousins, Charley & Liz.
{lovely Easter signage on 'my room'}

They have a great many traditions. My favourite things about Easter in the UK are the lovely country spring walks and the amazing locations you can visit on a long weekend (& Charley, "Choo" as I call him, is a master in devising great long weekend plans).
To begin Easter, Charley always puts together a lovely Easter scene. We begin by collecting moss in some abandoned woodland.
{me in an English spring woodland}



{choo collecting moss}

{Choo & his Easter scene}
Some of the highlights of past Easter travels include visits to Ely and Arundel Castle. Ely is a lovely town, where you can see the spires of the cathedral miles away. The cathedral is a beautiful building to wander through and the acoustics are extraordinary for an Easter service, while Ely's town offers a great tea room for cream tea.
{Ely Cathedral, exterior and interior(below)}


{a trip to Arundel Castle}

The other thing I love about Easters at Charley & Liz's are the fancy dress balls/dinner parties. I made masks one year for us all to wear and I even put our ancestor's fox stole around my neck.
{me & choo getting goofy with cigars & masks (check out the fox around my neck!)}


My cousin Liz has a lovely tradition of gathering twigs together, assembling them as a centrepiece and decorating them with Easter decorations.
This is the only picture I could find of Liz's Easter twigs:

Here's one very similar from delish
I like this idea from not on the high street:

Easter Chicks in twigs
These Easter-inspired birdie motifs are darling from birdie 1 on Etsy:
As Seen in PEOPLE MAGAZINE 24  Lovely Faux Speckled  Quail Eggs Vase Filler
24 Faux Robins Eggs, Easter Spring Decor
Vintage Fenton Yellow Satin Glass Footed Compote

Although I love the pastels of Easter, these white decorated eggs from pickles are gorgeous:

As kids we'd always make Ukrainian Easter eggs--we aren't Ukrainian but my Granny introduced us to the craft (I think one year when she was trying to alleviate my mother of 5 girls on spring break!). they are an absolutely gorgeous craft:
{image from Rainbow Fabrics}
If you're in London, don't miss the Liberty Easter Egg Hunt. You can win some yummy Prestat choccies, which by the way come in lovely wrappings:
Have a happy happy Easter!!

2 comments:

  1. A great blog, Leaps. I had forgotten how wet Arundel was - this year we had perfect sunshine (70+) for four days - it must be a first! We missed you - in 2011 Marian was the representative of the Canadian second cousinhood!

    We attended Maundy Thursday service in Chelmsford Cathedral, and the Good Friday service in Greenwich Naval Chapel, with the Trinity College choir, was amazing. Sat. we visited Waddesdon Manor (near Oxford), one of the 43 mansions/chateaux owned by the Rothschild family. On Sunday, after a very lovely service in the cathedral, Marian had identified a lovely garden with sculptures fairly near here. Easter Monday we visited Knebworth House and garden, including 75 dinosaurs!

    Now back to work - exhausted but with lots of hapy memories!

    XX

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  2. so glad you enjoyed! I had a great time in Toronto, but missed you all as well. Sounds lovely. Maybe next Easter??

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