We have a family tradition ...

… egg rolling.

Every Easter.

Up until five years ago I hadn’t met another family that did it. We take it seriously, very seriously indeed.

… we have a trophy.

For those of you who are not with it (ahem) … we paint hard boiled eggs, find a hill and roll our eggs down it. The egg that gets the most points over three rolls is the winner. The owner of said winning egg receives the trophy, which is proudly displayed until the next ‘egg roll’.

In t'olden days, when I was a child it was simple. Paint egg, find hill, roll egg, slap winner on back, well done.

Now the rules are a little lax.

I follow the old style method of ‘place and release’. Placing my egg on the line and releasing it.

I have never won the trophy.

Other family members, I shall name no names, favour the ‘egg toss’. The wrongdoer appear to be applying the ‘place and release’ method but at the last minute tosses their egg to gain speed and distance. This causes much bickering amongst the family and the word ‘cheat’ is bandied about. We have over ten family participants and it can get a little heated.

When the winner has been presented with the trophy we have lots of leftover eggs. One year, pre small children, we decided to have an egg pelting session which ended abruptly when a Grandparent received a black eye.

Since then we have taken a cricket bat and taken it in turns to bash the eggs (away from other people).

This week I received an email from my sister. I realised the excitement was brewing when she asked for verification of the rules.

She wanted to know if she could use more than one egg?
No, you may not. If you want to show off your artisitic abilities then we shall admire your extra eggs and say 'oooh', but they will not be submitted. One egg is sufficient.

Could we make the rules on trophy winning clear?
Yes. The winner wins the trophy.

Anything else?
Yes, we are going old school. We are using the ‘place and release’ method. Anyone found to be using the ‘egg toss’ will have points deducted from the total and people will point and mock.

After 30 years I might stand a chance of winning the trophy.

I keep finding the husband staring off into space and I think he must be thinking about work. Then I realise, he is a graphic designer, he is already designing his egg in his head.

Like I said, we take it seriously.