H is for Happy Easter . . .

  . . . although I'm not sure what's supposed to be so 'happy' about the crucifixion of a human being? 

 

There's a number of reason why I haven't posted recently, and I'm not going to list them all here, but really, what is there to be happy about? America is being run by a potty-mouthed, narcissistic, inveterate, constant liar and megalomaniac, who seems, along with his friends Putin and Netanyahu, to be determined to destroy the world economy, the world order and international rule of law, maintained since 1945, sometimes at great cost, for what? So he can rename everything after himself?

 

Starmer, along with the King, are proving to be a pair of gutless fuckwits, and while they seem to be starting to stand-up for themselves, Europe hasn't preformed much better. Easter has become another money-fest with most supermarkets only closed today, and otherwise observing none of the Bank Holidays, and with an October storm in March, the weather is clearly as fucked as a Messiah with nails through his hands and feet.

 

Sighs . . . anyways, here's some Easter stuff, both new and from the archive, with a better post later today.

 

Scanned in '22, I don't know if these where from then, or earlier, it was a major scanning session with several hundred bits of ephemera scanned, most of which is still in the long queue! But, card flats, to join the card-flat zone! I don't know if the names change from box/batch to box/batch, and they are obviously renditions of the Lindt chocolate bunnies, from the back of a Lindt egg box.

 

One of my fondest memories of Easter was hunting the Lindt foil-wrapped, mini-eggs; in the garden if the weather was nice; in the house if Christ's tears prevented outdoor activities.

 

Mum would buy them from the big glass jar in Richard's newsagents in Hartley Wintney, and she would have the staff ensure there were equal quantities of each colour (maybe she just ate the spares?!), which I remember as two shades of gold, a pastel green and blue, a heliotrope-purple, a mauve, and a red which was closer to pinkish-crimson/maroon.

 

Anyway, there was a big divvy-up at the end, between my brother and I, and if the two piles weren't balanced, we'd have to go off again and find the missing ones! I don't think you can even get them any more, it's all unwrapped, licence-related eggs, in plastic bags now, and getting very expensive in the last few years, for a number of reasons, not the least being the chocolate-loving, 8-billion souls.

 

Somehow missed when I did the chocolate bunny season back in '24, this was the Kinder effort, I thought it might have a 'maxi' egg, but it's a bog-standard sized capsule, with what appears to be a lamb in a blanket, but it's not 100% clear, and the toy's 'aint what they used to be!

 

Staying with the edible theme, I actually ate these weeks ago! Branded to World of Sweets, I think they were in B&M, but I honestly can't remember, they might have been in The Range? Anyway, they were a sort of generic tutti-fruity flavour, and are 'Spring', not Easter, is that Trump's hated 'woke', or just canny marketing, from money-grubbing, middle-class executives, no better than Trump himself?

 

Some actual Toys! These WERE in The Range, a couple of weeks ago, and remind me of an old Christmas stocking gift we got one year, which were egg-shaped vehicles, with fat 'racing slick' tyres, like the Marx fire engine we saw here, but as animals, so, more like the Pelican marker pens we saw here, given that one was a grey mouse and the other a pink rabbit, if memory serves? I occasionally look for them on eBay, but haven't found them yet!

 

These are a selection of sort of monster/alien types, using the same craft foam you can buy in sheets, applied to basic blown-plastic eggs, Not sure what the plastic type is, but it seems very thin, so some ethylene hybrid probably?

 

And, as I said at the top, something better, which you might have anticipated, latter today! Bah! Humbug!

C is for Crafty Sugar!

It's been a funny old day, my Northern friends are all posting pictures of 2-to-3-inches of lovely, fluffy snow on their Faceplant feeds, we've just had a shed-load of rain! So, plans to hoe the weeds on the drive have been replaced by a Picasa-clearing session! In fact I've done more to sort out the desk-top, but some other folders have been found/sorted.

 

As a result of the latter, this is stuff from several folders, and the above are, I believe Dr. Oetker (pronounced "errt'ker"?) edible cake decorations, although being made of a commercial royal-icing designed to produce figurines, I wouldn't suggest trying to eat them, if you value your teeth, they are rock-hard, indeed, probably harder than many rock types!

 

They were purchased (probably in Sainsbury's) and photographed back in 2020, and then lost and forgotten about in the sadness of that season, languishing in a folder I'd buried, only to resurface in today's shenanigans!

These were purchased and photographed in the last month or two, definitely from Sainsbury's, and look identical, but are not Dr. Oetker, being styled House of Cake, and because I didn't know when shooting the first lot, I would need the logo, I didn't shoot it, just memorising Dr. Oetker before they went-off to storage (they will last as long as chalkware, with the same care and lack of damp!), so while I 'believe', I can't say definitively?

 

Older ones.

 

Suffice to say that they are the same, except for the likely different card insert, and Dr. Oetker don't list them on their site any more, so the new brand-mark may mean both were bought-in from somewhere else?

 

Morrison's (and Waitrose/John Lewis) are both stocking these, under the Cake Décor branding, a nice set of three sugar craft figurals, with a very similar Santa, but a rocking snowman, along with a rather surprised penguin.

 

And Asda are carrying this pair, obviously from the same source, but branded in-house, and while the Santa is the same sculpt, they have gone with a companion Rudolf, although it should be Rudolfina, as male Reindeer lose their antlers after the Autumn rutting, the females retain theirs through the winter, so Santa's team should really be girls!

The three Santa Clauses together, the Asda one has a better red than the washed-out pink of the Morrisons' one, but I suspect that is down to batch? While the Sainsbury's one, which I'm pretty sure used to be Dr. Oetker has the better packaging, for a product which although as hard as rock, is as likely to chip as slate!

Tesco haven't had anything like this (a few 'button' relief-flats), on several visits to the big one in Aldershot, nor a shelf-gap or label for any, while Aldi and Lidl wouldn't stock something so specific and minority interest?