Easter Egg Hunt at the Short and Curlies

Last Sunday Baz and Shirl held an Easter Egg Hunt at the Short and Curlies. They charged £5 for children accompanied by an adult and £10 for those without, a wise move, as they had no unruly children to control and a number of parents willing to sup their way through the afternoon.

Some of the events that Baz organises can be a little lack lustre, his medieval banquet last winter was more brown food buffet than ye olde sumptuous feast, but for the Easter egg hunt he seemed to have pulled out all the stops. There were lots of eggs secreted around the beer garden, he had organised a face painter and some cute baby chicks on hand for the ‘Ah’ factor. He had even arranged an Easter bunny to hand out chocolate eggs to the very small children.

It will come as no surprise that the person who volunteered to be the Easter bunny was Garth, that man will do anything to dress up, but the bigger shock was that Jacinta had a costume that she could lend him, and what’s more she had knitted it several years previously for Prithpal.

It was a warm afternoon and the beer was flowing, most of the street had turned out and Mand was in a small huddle with Caroline and Suzy, telling them how proud she was of her man.

‘He’s so like willing, and he loves kids and I like, love kids…so’, she trailed off to let this information soak in when Mr Misery walked up with the baby who had been sick all over his arm, Mand took one look at the child and turned a slight shade of green.

‘Well’, she managed to say, ‘I must be off to find my Garthy’.

Tom had been put in charge of the baby chicks, he had been given strict instructions to let the younger children stroke them, the older ones would be allowed to hold them, but only very gently, any signs of squashing then the chicks should be removed immediately. 

He had taken to the job with gusto when the hunt opened but half an hour in and his leaning was more towards being in the bar than in the garden, he tried to rope Ken into taking over. Allowing Tom half an hour to get himself a drink Ken nestled into the deck chair beside the make shift pen, it was clearly a recipe for disaster, the man could sleep on a washing line, let alone in any chair-like construction and within a minute he was asleep. At this point a small boy decided to have a peer into the pen and finding no one awake enough to stop him he pulled open the wire door, and they were off! Like a scene from the Great Escape the chicks waddled at great speed across the beer garden.

Garth, who had been leaning against the shed, having a crafty smoke out of sight of the children, spotted them and within the restrictions of the knitted costume he too waddled off after them.  

As proud as ever Mand announced the heroic act of her man, ‘Don’t worry everyone, if anyone can save them my Garthy can.’

Seeing as the chicks did not seem to be in any danger and enjoying the freedom, this seemed like a ludicrous statement, but it did make me look in the direction of Garth, who, it appeared, had caught his costume on a nail in the wood of the shed. As he ran after the excitable chicks the Easter Bunny began to unravel. Jacinta had a look of horror on her face as the costume she had so lovingly knitted disappeared before her eyes.

By the time he reached the pub outhouse, where the chicks had been heading, Garth’s outfit was up to his waist. He seemed oblivious to this and I’m surprised he didn’t notice the sudden draught, the rest of us however were dumb struck as we looked at his boxer shorts which had been revealed with the words, ‘Feel the Force’ printed on the back of them. 

Mand caught up with him, a look on her face which was something between embarrassment and delight, ‘Oh Garthy’, she said, ’What are you like, like.’

Whilst someone found a picnic blanket to hide Garth’s modesty Shirl discovered the chicks in the utility room of the pub, perfectly happy in their new found surroundings.