Good Friday...

Just wanted to say 'Happy Easter'.

I've got friends arriving later this afternoon for the weekend and I will be cooking lunch on Sunday for 17...Jamie Oliver's slow-cooked shoulder of lamb...should read shoulders! From this book.

These golden bunnies are itching to escape the cupboard that they've been hiding in for the last week...







And for those of you who guessed correctly as to my latest knitting project , here they are in all their glory. They were such good fun to do; I really enjoyed playing around with the pastel colours - a palette I don't often use.

Of course, I did the now obligatory mosaic...

You can find the pattern here - for next year now, unless you're a very speedy knitter!

I'm wondering if it will really snow, as forecast. That will add an interesting dimension to our annual Easter Egg Hunt...

On a more personal note, I am finding Easter hard, again - I did last year. Tom became ill on Easter Monday 2 years ago (although the dates are different) and that Easter was to be our last big family occasion. I will take some flowers to the cemetery on Sunday and put down a little basket of eggs for his brother, cousins and friends to share.

I can remember doing some gardening on that Easter Monday and thinking that he didn't seem quite himself and was getting chesty. One of our community nurses visited us the following day. She seemed quite concerned about his pallor; he was getting blue around his mouth. I wasn't overly concerned at that time because I was used to his chestiness. He'd been in respiratory failure for over a year and was oxygen-dependant at night and on prophylactic anti-biotics for his chest. Deep down though, I was always trying to be positive about the eventual outcome of all Tom's many, many problems. The nurse decided to go and get a sats monitor and on her return, the decision was made to get him onto oxygen straight away as the levels of oxygen in his blood were very low. Luckily, I had everything to hand at home should any emergency ever arise and so we could use the portable tanks we had stored in the cupboard.

I'm not really ready to write about the end just yet. But it came just 11 days after that Easter Monday. My little boy made me so proud. Despite being gravely ill, he showed me love and dignity in his own special way, and a quiet determination to do things at his own pace and in his own time.

My fingers just ran away with me there, but I won't apologise, if you don't mind. It wasn't going to be such a personal post. Maybe spontaneity is a good thing...