Cadbury's Cream What?

Easter Saturday, and could I find a decent Cadbury’s Easter egg in the centre of town? Could I heck! You can get a fancy schmantsy one pretty much anywhere, but the next most well-stocked variety seem to be the hideous ones made by Nestle. Rolo. Smarties. You know, the disappointing ones that taste like gritty pastic. Since the death of Woolworths, where on earth are we all meant to go for a nice big Cadbury’s Cream Egg? Woolworths didn't get much right, but they had pick 'n mix, the Greatest Hits of Dolly Parton and a brilliant selection of cheap Easter Eggs.


I therefore spent the afternoon with Fiona in town trudging around in enormous, smelly crowds of people until our feet nearly fell off. In a rather tragic moment, probably because I was knackered and was trying to escape someone who smelled like biscuits and wee-wee, I brought almost everything I was looking for in Marks and Spencers. One pair of linen trousers, check. Some pyjama bottoms I’m going to wear outdoors in the summer, check. A little brown scarf to match my bruised soul, check. And 20 pairs of socks. This will be music to the ears of anyone who knows me. I’ve always put-up with, and in fact been hugely grateful to my brother’s socky hand-me-downs, but I no longer own a pair without a massive hole in either the heel or the toe. I also tend to only wear odd socks, often because they arrived from my brother as lone rangers but also because I tend to just grab the first two socks that come out of the drawer. Most of the ones I bought today are either brown or black, so maybe no one will notice from now on... unless I wear the orange and green ones I slipped into the basket at the last moment, except I didn't have a basket, so was holding everything in the style of someone in Crackerjack. Cabbage!

On the way home, we walked past PC World on Tottenham Court Road. Rather randomly it now carries a massive advert for the Apple Store all the way along one window. Christ! If PC World customers are even being diverted to the futuristic joys of the Mac, it might be time to acknowledge the death of the PC...

Pepys was sleeping like the dead when a messenger arrived at his cabin door at 3am and rather over-excitedly tried to wake him up. He rose to discover the messenger was simply there to deliver a package for Montagu, which Pepys decided could wait until morning and went back to bed, probably feeling incredibly grumpy. This was the second time mail had arrived on the boat in the middle of the night and Pepys had been woken up to receive it on both occasions. Perhaps the Royal Mail could learn a thing or two about the importance of going out of one’s way to deliver letters on time.

Later in the day, Pepys attempted to go to shore but after getting into some kind of rowboat, had to turn round for fear of being stranded in the Thames at low tide. Not a laughing matter in those days. Probably not much of a laughing matter today...

Later on, Mr Pearse the surgeon came on board to start his job as the official doctor on the Nazeby. Being an old friend of Pepys, they snuck off and shared a bottle of wine late into the night. Pepys went to bed with a heavy heart, having heard nothing from his wife since he left for sea; "indeed I do not remember that ever my heart was so apprehensive of her absence as at this very time."

Personally, I don’t like it when I can’t get in touch with Nathan for just a few hours. Heaven knows what it must feel like to be weeks without hearing from your loved one. I can’t imagine receiving a letter and not knowing what had happened since it was sent; hearing that someone was very sick for example, and not knowing if they’d died by the time you received it.