The English Maximalista

One of my earliest memories of childhood was an Easter egg hunt we held in the back garden of our family home. I would have been preschool age, my brother a toddler.

Our German grandmother was visiting us. She had carefully packed a cache of traditional European papier-mâché Easter eggs, and brought them over with her from Germany. My little brother and I were delighted to play this new game of finding treats in the garden, furthermore once we discovered that these ostrich-sized eggs were filled with tiny foil-covered chocolate ovoids and inch-high yellow pompom chicks!

This was back in the days when air travel was not as accessible as it is today; my grandmother would have traveled to England overnight on the ferry from either Hamburg or Flensburg, then caught a series of trains from Harwich to our small town in the Midlands. 

Being Springtime, I’m sure crossing the English Channel would have been a choppy and frigid journey. I can only imagine how irksome it must have been for her to lug a massive suitcase all that way. She would have brought my grandfather’s old leather army suitcase — without the little caster wheels that all new luggage has nowadays — heavily laden with her beautiful clothes, and crammed full of the goodies that she always generously brought with her.

Her jars of face creme alone would have added considerably to the weight: her Nivea cold creme, in that recognizable cobalt blue glass pot, was heavy enough to be a cudgel.

To this day, any time I get a whiff of Nivea, I am immediately transported back to my late grandmother’s dressing table, in a moment reminiscent of Proust’s madeleines. I still miss her.

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When the Top Banana was little, we continued with the traditions of my German heritage, upon which we added new ones of our own, with her American family.

Sadly, with the passing of time, those days are gone, and we now patiently await the patter of grandchildrens’ feet. In the meantime, we hide the Easter eggs from Sadie, our dog, who has an uncanny eagle eye for things she should not be getting at.

Last week, Sadie was casually watching me take our Easter decorations out of the tub we store in the garage. She was curious about all of it. I let her sniff at the contents, but made sure to not leave any of it unguarded, aware as I am of her propensity to turn things into pulpy splinters.

Nevertheless, despite my vigilance she still managed to hijack one of the black eggs (painted with chalkboard paint so we can draw our own designs) off the dining table. Inexplicably without disturbing anything else on the surface!? She can be quite stealthful, when she chooses to be.

Thankfully, she was actually very gentle with the egg, left no teeth marks or anything. We actually hadn’t noticed it was gone, until we heard the telltale ping-pong sound it made when she eventually dropped it on the hardwood floor, alerting us to her larceny.

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In Western society, the Easter season is traditionally one of pastels, fluffy bunnies and cute chicks. Which makes it more of a crusade for me to find items to match my personal design aesthetic of black – charcoal – grey – cream – white.

It has taken many years to collect the few neutral-coloured Easter decorations that you can see here. (Mission accepted! Where there is a will, there is a way!) I am quite determined to generate an Easter aesthetic to match my decor. I have so much fun, decorating the love shack.

In this house, though, we have an Easter Bunny AND an Easter Piggy, the latter of whom will be guaranteed to have eaten all of the Easter sweet treats shown in the pictures, by the time you read these words…

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend, regardless of how you are celebrating the welcome birth of Spring!

Lots of love,

M xo

CREDITS: The china I used is a mixture of Fiestaware with pink Spode and B&W Wedgwood. Stemware is by Lenox. Flatware sterling Gorham.