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!

E is for Eggie Business!

A few more capsule eggs, nothing terribly exciting, I wasn't really thinking about Easter this year, so neither looked out for nor searched-out anything seasonal . . . Actually that's a small lie, I did pop-in to Hobbycraft, just to see if they had anything this year; they had the dinosaur 'decoration' set last year with the small eggs, but they had nothing this year, it's always hit-and-miss with the discounters.

I Can't remember where I picked this up? I think it may have been the local hardware store, but branded to World of Sweets, unusual for having a lengthways split to the capsule (less of a choking hazard?), and the fact that the relief-flat dinosaur is over-moulded rubber - the back's plain black.

 

Found these on Amazon, still there; it was only the other day, with various whacky brand-marks! Twelve dino's in twelve eggs, best egg-hunt material, but no chocolate, which will disappoint some! We may have seen some of these loose, in one of various visits to these smaller-size dinosaurs, which as I mentioned the other day I intend to ID eventually, all on one page.

 

An eBay lot, just as filler for a thin post! From the seller's description, I gather these are from PMS International, who we have seen several times here at Small Scale World now, and were/are called Putty Surprize! / Mystery Pets Surprise.  They seem to have been issued as blind bag type things, with what looks to be - from the left; a hippo, owl, salamanda (?) and Koala bear. I suspect they glow in the dark too!

B is for Bone Breaker's Old Jones Bones!

Back together again apparently, but I don't even remember their first hit? Clearly a full-on homage to the Bone Shaker candy of the past, and of which we've seen the coffin here now once or twice, and very chuffed to find these.

When I couldn't find whatever I thought was in the queue for this year and realised I didn't have anything to post today, I remembered I had seen these in the window of a local sweet shop, but I had been rushing to somewhere else and they were busy, so I made a mental note to go back for them, which I did last Saturday (nine days before THE day), but they had not only sold-out, but sold the one/s in the window, and announced they hadn't re-ordered!

So, I thought; "Well, they must be online, and I've got a week?", so off to Google, where the most obvious result was an eBayer called The Wee Sweetie Company trading as Letterboxsweeties, who sent me three, from Dundee (or Glasgow?) in less than two days and for no more than a couple would have set me back locally, and that; Ladies & Gentlemen, is why the High Street is dying!

And "Specially produced in China for the Crazy Candy Factory - World of Sweets" (Leicester and Belfast), I hate to think what damage to the planet my purchase represents, but I know some scientists (and the Secretary-General of the UN) are only giving us about two years or less to save the planet now.

Although presumably new tools, the compressed chalky sugar candy (which I dislike) seems to follow the pattern of the old Bone Shaker faithfully and consists of 12 pieces, I did try one in case they were nicer than I thought, and it was rock hard for the first few bites, hence 'Bone Breaker', then melted away rather disappointingly.

But was otherwise as I remembered it; a bit chalky and not very tasty, or that sweet? Nor did it have the tang of sherbet, so the eleven remaining bones went under the hedge to feed insects after rain, while the other two coffins are still sealed for 'posterity'!

But not before I'd constructed the 'puzzle' once, for the Blog! For some reason the green and white sections are thinner than the other colours? Anyway, I managed - at the eleventh-hour to contribute something to the Blogs Halloween Day! This has reminded me . . . new paragraph -

When we were kids, little kids; about seven or eight maybe, someone gave us some Pez; not the holders, just the refill packs, which were similar candy, and we didn't like them, but as they were chalky-pink and brick-shaped, we glued-them into walls for our 54mm Toy Soldiers (with balsa-cement I think?), and a few were still hanging around, glued to cereal-pack card bases, when we moved from there in 1980, about ten years later - I don't know what they make that stuff out of, but it's nasty stuff!