{easter}

{via delish}

Easter was always a big holiday in our family. This year I'm heading to Toronto for Easter, to spend it with my sister and her family. The majority of Easters in recent years have been spent  at my 'home away from home' in the UK at my second cousins, Charley & Liz.

{lovely Easter signage on 'my room'}

They have a great many traditions. My favourite things about Easter in the UK are the lovely country spring walks and the amazing locations you can visit on a long weekend (& Charley, "Choo" as I call him, is a master in devising great long weekend plans).
To begin Easter, Charley always puts together a lovely Easter scene. We begin by collecting moss in some abandoned woodland.

{me in an English spring woodland}

{choo collecting moss}

{Choo & his Easter scene}

Some of the highlights of past Easter travels include visits to Ely and Arundel Castle. Ely is a lovely town, where you can see the spires of the cathedral miles away. The cathedral is a beautiful building to wander through and the acoustics are extraordinary for an Easter service, while Ely's town offers a great tea room for cream tea.

{Ely Cathedral, exterior and interior(below)}

{a trip to Arundel Castle}

The other thing I love about Easters at Charley & Liz's are the fancy dress balls/dinner parties. I made masks one year for us all to wear and I even put our ancestor's fox stole around my neck.

{me & choo getting goofy with cigars & masks (check out the fox around my neck!)}

My cousin Liz has a lovely tradition of gathering twigs together, assembling them as a centrepiece and decorating them with Easter decorations.
This is the only picture I could find of Liz's Easter twigs:

Here's one very similar from delish: 

I like this idea from not on the high street:

These Easter-inspired birdie motifs are darling from birdie 1 on Etsy:

Although I love the pastels of Easter, these white decorated eggs from pickles are gorgeous:

As kids we'd always make Ukrainian Easter eggs--we aren't Ukrainian but my Granny introduced us to the craft (I think one year when she was trying to alleviate my mother of 5 girls on spring break!). they are an absolutely gorgeous craft:

{image from Rainbow Fabrics}

If you're in London, don't miss the Liberty Easter Egg Hunt. You can win some yummy Prestat choccies, which by the way come in lovely wrappings:

Have a happy happy Easter!!