Rewind a few weeks, back to the dizzy heat of Easter Day...
Remember? Waking up to that warm feeling of sunshine and daffodils squeezing their heads up through the hard spring ground... Buds on the trees, bees in the breeze, the countryside on the de-freeze...

The excitement of tasting chocolate again for the first time since Shrove Tuesday was high up my list of Sunday's chores, as well as an epic bike ride over to The Bat And Ball (home of cricket! where all good cricket-widows, sorry I mean wives, should find themselves on Easter Sunday) and a top Easter Egg hunt as the sun set over the woods in the late afternoon.

But before all that could kick off we needed a little visit to the church, to think about the story behind Easter, to think about the real reason we have Easter eggs and the real reason for the Easter Rabbit. Surely this all comes from the christian faith?
(queue coughy-clearing-of-the-throat noise from Mr Cadburys...)

Over Easter we had some friends staying with us. North London friends with black hair, ipads and 2 pairs of wellies between the 4. Not being your usual church-goers, they being of the Jewish(ish) community, Mr C and his eldest daughter M thought it'd be educational to come sit at the back of the church with us for the Easter service.

With the church heaving with over-sugared children and mothers worrying about how long to cook their lamb, the vicar and organist set off at a good pace to get through the service before there was a collective melting in the congregation.

Meanwhile, at the back of the church on the last pew, sat me, Husband, Liz, Mol, Mol's friend and Mols friends' Dad Mr C. Mr C, who'd never been in a church before now.
Husband sits in the pew and rests his head in his hand for a moment of contemplation.
"What's he doing?" a fierce whisper in my left ear and I'm face to face with Mr C, who's looking anxiously at Husband.
"Why's he doing that?" Eyeball to eyeball.
"Um, praying? Maybe? Often people come to church and pray?"
"Hm" and a curious sideways nod of the curly head.
Out comes the iphone.
"?" I look at Mr C.
I see the vicar through the iphone view finder. I see the backs of the congregation through the iphone view finder.
We sing some hymns.
"Not the same sort of tunes at the synagogue."
We read from the service sheet. A lady with a reedy voice reads from the bible.
The vicar makes his Address and waffles about something for 5 minutes.
Then he (the vicar) walks to the rear of the church, metres from where we are sitting. He is standing by the font where I was christened, and where Liz & Mol were christened. Its nearly 900 years old.
"What's he doing?" another fierce whisper this time in my right ear (we've turned around facing the back of the church).
"Not sure."
"Do you think he can tell I'm Jewish?"
"I think you'll be OK."
"I feel really exposed. We're right at the front now."
"I know. Stop talking. You're drawing attention to your Jewfro and your very unHampshire North Face puffer jacket."
"Maybe I should stop taking photos?"
"Shut up."
The vicar starts talking from the service sheet again and it seems that we are re-newing our baptism vows (something to do with rebirth maybe?).
Suddenly out of nowhere, the vicar gets his hand in the Holy Water,
"Why is there water in that thing?" (pointing to the font)
"It's the Holy Water to baptise babies in."
"What's he doing?"
"Not sure."
And before another questions spurts from Mr C's mouth, the vicar is splashing water out to the congregation - renouncing the devil loudly he flings water out towards us.
The water splashes the North Face jacket.
It takes every ounce of bodily control to not let out a loud blast of laughter as Mr C hops back - service sheet flying, water dabbing his puffer...
"Ahhhhh! What's it going to do? What does Holy Water do? Is it going to burn my coat?" (It's like that moment in the opening titles of Sex in the City, when SJP gets splashed crossing the road...)
The vicar returns to the front and we sing hymn number 428.
Mr C looks wild eyed.
"Oh dear, you are really in a religious compromise now" I say... "What will the gods think of you now - a little bit of this, a little bit of that... This is the kind of stuff WARS are made of Mr C."
Mr C soon left the church, iphone in the damp pocket.
He hasn't been back to the church since. Hopefully he'll come again - maybe at Christmas and we can all have a play with the animals in the crib!

And the chocolate tasted DIVINE.