Inspired by the hilarious Easter posts by TD and DG, I hereby present ‘Easter in Blackpool with the Spellcnuts’:

CD’s played – 4
In the car on the way up there it was the bloggers disco mix, The Bravery and the Kaiser Chiefs. In the house over the weekend there was more Bravery and a couple of spins of KD and her Hymns Of The 49th Parallel. Darren refuses to enjoy the Bravery album because “they look stupid”. However, he is looking forward to the new British Sea Power album (they don't look at all silly in this photo).

Easter eggs eaten – 3
I had two. An adult After Eight egg on Easter Sunday and a family Roses egg on Good Friday. Darren went for a very adult Cadburys affair with extravagant packaging (including a voile mesh bag which now contains a delicately scented puffy pot-pourri). No childish eggs for us this year.
*must remember to go to supermarket today to buy half price Flake and Crunchie eggs for tonight next year*

Eating out trips – 4
Friday evening was at our friendly local Italian trattoria. A litre of house red has made my memories fuzzy but I’m sure the meal was lovely.
On Saturday we bagged a table at The Cottage (the only restaurant in the North West to make it into Rick Steins seafood book). Top tucker only slightly spoiled by a table of loonies attempting to sabotage the ambience (I realise it’s very un-pc of me to describe the ‘special needs’ people as loonies but I swear I heard one of them mutter something about fat poofs at one point). We shall definitely return for the battered haddock.
Sunday afternoon was lunch with Darrens family at his parents house near Liverpool. Classic Sunday roast with Vienetta for afters.
Monday was an early lunch of homemade mince pie, chips and veg at Via Veneto. Very school dinners (and probably cheaper too).

Garden centres visited – 2
One of them was actually a nursery. A very well stocked nursery on the way to Southport. We purchased six Russian vine plants (two for Blackpool ,the rest for London). We were warned last year that they would ‘take over’ and cover everything but they didn’t so we bought more. The garden centre we visited later that day was huge and had a pet section so we bought Edward a dog Easter egg (made from carob). We gave it to him on Easter Monday and he took it into the back yard to eat. He seemed to enjoy it. Thirty minutes later he threw it up on the carpet.

Televisual entertainment – lots
Storms in January fucked our TV aerial in Blackpool so on Friday morning I was ringing every aerial engineer in the yellow pages begging them to come out at Easter because we need to see Doctor Who. Surprisingly one of them did! By tea-time on Friday we had a new aerial and our new Freeview box connected and we were sipping instant coffee while watching QVC. Workmen are much cheaper up North.
Doctor Who was very good. Much better than I expected and I fancy him (can’t say that about any of the others can you). We watched The Incredibles on DVD which was nearly perfect and a big fat nine out of ten from me. Coronation Street is getting silly (but still pisses on Eastenders) and El Cid was the annual Easter sword and sandals epic which I managed to avoid.

Other stuff
The weather was nice for such an early Easter and so walks with Edward on the wide sands were lovely. We strolled round The Pleasure Beach on Saturday but didn’t ride anything. Nice to see lots of young men in short shorts this weekend due to the huge football tournament that was obviously taking place somewhere in town. We popped into the new Solaris Centre on the prom to look at the regeneration plans for Blackpool town centre (it looked like Frankfurt by the sea to me).Edwards new dog collar works a treat. A little box on the collar squirts poisonous gas in his face every time he barks. I had my favourite boots soled and heeled for half the price of a London cobbler and I finished reading Dry by Augusten Burroughs (excellent) and started Trouble Boy by Tom Dolby (very poor so far).