I was just having a little think about how Easter day have changed for me over my life time. As a child Easter time was one the busiest times of the year for me and the family. The week running up to Easter day or the week after was taken up with dance festivals. I competed in hundreds of dances throughout the week in the chase for that allusive medal or certificate. I used to really love that week, it was the highlight of my year. learning dances after dances, solos, groups, duets, trios, ballet, tap, modern, national, song and dances, jazz, free style, the lot, I did them all. I never won anything, but that never bothered me I just loved the whole process of it. It is funny now I cannot stand the whole process of them, now I am on the other side, a teacher and a watcher, and have nothing to do with them. When I was teaching for dance schools I hated teaching dances for the festival and ended up stopping. The whole back stabbing of children and pushy mothers, completive teachers, I did not see any of that as a child, I think I must have walked around in blinkers the whole time.

So that was the first busy part to Easter, the second was the big brass band completion at butlins. The whole family, and I had a big family, played in the local brass band, which my folks had founded. On Easter day we had a coach trip to a 50 style holiday camp, (hi-de-hi), and I would spend my Easter day sitting in silence listening to endless bands. Some years the journey back on the coach was loud, rowdy and fun because the band had won and done well, and some journeys were quiet and solemn because the band might have come last, but this event happened every Easter day as child.

Very different to now, fast forward thirty years or so and here I am sitting on the sofa in peace and quiet, lap top on lap, children grown up and both at work, no dancing, no competition, no brass bands, no ‘happy Easter’ because I am an atheist, no Sunday dinners because I don’t do them and no chocolate eggs (don’t panic and feel sorry for me, I hate chocolate and I never give the kids chocolate and again don’t feel sorry for them, it’s their choice they would rather have money!) and it is great!