Choc and awe

She only realised as an adult that Easter eggs came in a whole egg shape, for her mother could never resist breaking into the chocolate before the big day.

“She re-wrapped them so perfectly in the foil and placed them back in the box so it looked like they hadn’t been touched. My brother and sister and I never realised Easter eggs came any other way.”

What a brilliant ruse. Why didn’t I, in all my years of stealing my children’s chocolate, think of that one?

I am a chocolate addict. And, although I always got whole Easter eggs as a child, my mother was, indeed still is, a chocolate addict too. It’s something I was born with.

Although I rarely buy the stuff, if it’s in the house I can’t resist: “If you leave chocolate lying about, you know I will eat it,” I always warn the boys at Christmas and Easter time.

So, when I’m tidying their rooms during these festive seasons, they know I will scoop up anything in sight as I go. Sometimes, in the process of putting stuff away, I will discover a hidden stash in a sock or underpants drawer.

“You are all fully aware of what will happen if you leave chocolate where I am likely to come across it,” I warn them. But still, they complain.

“What on earth were you doing looking in an old shoebox, pushed way back to the wall, under my bed?” one of them complained once.

But they should also know by now that I can sniff out that heady mix of cocoa, sugar and fat from at least 100 yards.

This year, though, was different. About three weeks before Easter I came to the realisation that, of all the things in chocolate that I am addicted to, sugar is the worst. So I have eliminated it from my diet.

I have never felt better. I don’t get so many headaches, or suffer the same craving for sugar in order to give me a boost because I feel so tired and lethargic.

“I am, more or less, sugar free,” I told the boys. “So I won’t be touching your chocolate this year.” They all looked dubious. I didn’t blame them. This was going to be the first Easter in living memory when I didn’t touch chocolate.

I bought them all their eggs in advance, but kept them in the car boot for a few weeks so I wouldn’t be tempted to break into them and replace them with new ones, which is what happens every other year.

My resolve remained strong, until the day before, when, feeling weak at the sight of all that sweet, rich, brown stuff in the house, I decided I needed a contingency plan.

So I bought three bars of diabetic chocolate from the chemist’s. Not ideal, I know, because it’s probably just as unhealthy as regular chocolate when eaten to excess, but at least it doesn’t contain sugar.

Just for use in an emergency, I put it on a high shelf, where we keep all the family medicines and asthma inhalers.

The next 48 hours were a real test of my resolve. We had the family Easter egg hunt, which even the 23-year-old, who, like me, is a chocolate fiend, is always up for.

And I managed to resist the temptation to hide a few eggs in impossible-to-find places where only I could find them later.

Now, every time I open the fridge and the freezer, I am faced with an array of chocolate eggs (and how I love chocolate straight from the freezer). There are eggs sitting about in the kitchen, in the living room, I even discovered one in the bathroom.

“Easter Sunday has been and gone. I can’t believe we still have all these eggs sitting about,” I said to one of the boys this morning. “It’s never happened before.”

“That’s because you used to finish them all off,” said the eldest.

I just wish they’d eat them all quickly, and get it over and done with. This is turning into a living Hell.

I THINK by the time you reach the age of 88, you have earned the right to say pretty much what you like. When the vicar called to see my mother, who was poorly, recently he asked her, just before he said a prayer, if there was anything she would like to ask God for: “For a return to good health,” she said, adding with great sincerity: “And that my bowels open.” The vicar happily complied. It seemed to do the trick.