Goings on at Petalina

Gotz Girls having Easter fun

The sun was shining this morning and the Gotz Girls woke up bright and early because their bedroom was so light and sunny for once. They couldn’t wait to get dressed to go outside.

“It must be warm today with the sun out,” said Elisabeth. “I’m so fed up with wearing all my boring winter clothes I’m going to wear my new outfit today. Mum bought it for me from Petalina. I really like the denim shorts and my new cute cardi should stop me getting chilly. What are you going to wear?” she asked the others.

“I’m too sleepy to think about it,” groaned Hannah, “and I want to have some breakfast first.”

“Come on sleepy head!” said Luisa as she tickled Hannah’s feet to try and get her moving. It usually worked and Hannah quickly ended up in fits of giggles.

The girls were sitting eating some delicious buttery toast dripping with mum’s favourite strawberry jam, when their friendly robin flew up to the window and sat on a branch of the cherry tree outside looking in at them. “Look” said Luisa. “The robin’s hungry. Let’s go and feed him. Come on!”

Hannah took the pot of food from the porch, with Elisabeth and Hannah close on her tail. They then opened the porch door quietly and crept outside. Hannah took a few pieces of food and scattered them on the wall. “Ugh! I hate touching the mealworms.” she said.

Elisabeth called “Come on! Come on!” in quite a high, loud voice, and then made some clicking noises with her tongue just like she had heard mum doing. Mum had taught a pair of robins and a mummy black bird to come for food when she called them.

In just a few moments the hungry robin flew down to take some food. The girls could not believe how tame he was as he stood in front of them eating his favourite dried grubs. “Isn’t he sweet?” whispered Luisa, “I wonder if the other robin and the blackbird are going to come today?”

Hannah looked up. “There they are!” she said excitedly, as she pointed to both the other birds sitting rather nervously in the bay tree next to them. “Perhaps they don’t like our bright clothes?” she wondered. “But I expect they will get used to them soon enough.”

“What shall we do now?” asked Hannah. The girls started discussing various ideas when they heard their mum calling them back inside.

“How do you fancy going to the park this morning?” Mum asked. “There’s an Easter Egg Hunt laid on and I thought you might like to go and join in. What do you think?”

“YES PLEASE!!!” shouted all the girls jumping up and down with glee. “OK, OK, calm down. Go and clean your teeth and get some shoes on. Elisabeth, do you want to take the Easter Basket you made at school yesterday? I thought you could collect eggs in it for everyone.”

“Good idea!’ replied Elisabeth. “It’s in my room! I’ll bring it down in a minute!” All the girls ran off chattering and laughing as they did so.

The park was just ten minutes walk away. As soon as they arrived the Gotz Girls spotted a lady in the distance standing by a table covered in a purple cloth with a large Easter Egg Hunt sign fixed to it. The girls ran off towards it and left Mum behind. They were so excited they didn’t hear her asking them to slow down and wait for her. Poor Mum – she always got left behind. Anyway, they had to wait for her in the end because it was £1 each to join in and they didn’t have any money. Mum handed £3 to the lady who then asked, “Have you got something you can collect the eggs in?” Elisabeth proudly held up her basket. “Oh that’s beautiful and absolutely perfect,” she said. “Now, there are eggs absolutely everywhere so feel free to go anywhere in the park, but make sure you don’t step on the crocus flowers over there please.” The lady pointed towards four enormous trees with hundreds of little purple flowers beneath.

The girls all turned towards the flowers which looked so beautiful, they couldn’t wait to go over to see them close up. “We’ll be careful,” said Luisa. “We will,” said the others and ran off again. “Stop!” shouted Mum. “Please come back! Where are your manners? What do you say?”

“Thank you” they all said in unison.

“Now this time please wait for me!” pleaded Mum.

As soon as they reached the flowers they noticed that there were lots and lots and lots of tiny eggs in brightly coloured wrappers scattered around the tree trunks. The three girls spent the next ten minutes excitedly collecting so many tiny eggs. At least Elisabeth and Luisa seemed to be collecting lots of eggs. “Stop eating the eggs Hannah,” demanded Elisabeth. “They aren’t just for you – remember we have to share them out!”

“Sorry!” replied Hannah, “I just can’t help myself because I LOVE CHOCOLATE so much! Why don’t you all come and sit down and eat a few before we go home.”

“Good idea” said Luisa. “I just want to get these from up here but I’m not quite tall enough!”

After munching away on far too many little eggs Mum suggested that they might like to save some for after lunch. “Just one more,” Hannah asked.

“OK, just one more then but that’s it until after lunch or you’ll all be sick!” said Mum. “Does anyone have any energy left to go to the playground?”

“Yes!” the girls all shouted.

“Let’s go on the swings!” said Elisabeth.

“I want to go on that awesome bouncy thing!” shouted Luisa.

“Please can we go on the dragon first?” asked Hannah. And off they all ran.

Mum could see one of her friends sitting on a bench and looked forward to having a chat while all their children had a great time burning off some energy. The sun was still shining although it was rather chilly. But everyone was happy! What a perfect start to the day.

First posted on Petalina’s original blog on 31/3/13.

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