Easter eggs are an essential in Woods Towers

Do Easter eggs constitute an essential? Let us consider the evidence now that celebrating the forthcoming feast of St Cadbury is fraught with potential hazard.

Being devout, I always used to defer buying chocolate eggs until Easter Monday, out of respect for… well, the fact they were so much cheaper!

Back in the day, I’d be up bright and early queuing outside Woolworth’s (RIP) to fill one of their huge plastic bags (also RIP) with all the surplus cocoa solids that would fit.

But now my children are older, they insist on being drearily conventional and want their overpackaged calories on Easter Sunday itself.

So what to do in these extraordinary times? Early on in the lockdown, shoppers were castigated by overzealous police forces for buying chocolate eggs. Quite right, too; any fule kno that she who stocks up on confectionery weeks in advance like that is only going to eat them secretly and have to buy more.

But since the egg crackdown caused an outcry, there has been an about-turn by the authorities. The real authorities, that is, not just the moral ones.

Now it’s April, that’s perfectly reasonable. When you think about it, stockpiling a hutchful of Lindt’s golden bunnies means there’s plenty of virtuous dried legumes on the shelves for other people to buy. It’s kind of a public service, surely?

I went to Sainsbury’s this week where, just inside the door, I was met by a wonderwall of Easter eggs piled higher than the dome of St Paul’s.

No tins of plum tomatoes. No hand sanitiser. But a lavish surfeit of eggs.

In New Zealand – of course… – the Prime Minister has declared the Easter bunny an essential worker.

Here, we are egged on by our consciences. So, yes, I did invest in Easter treats because, on balance, I consider them essential – if I am to get a moment’s peace come

Sunday.