The Egg Hotel and Hospital

At Easter my children's school have an Easter Egg Competition. Not with chocolate, but with boiled eggs. The whole school take part and it gets really competitive. People have even had to be disqualified because their eggs were clearly entirely the work of the parents...

All of the children from year 1 and up make a huge pun-fuelled diorama, complete with boiled egg characters. I'm proud to say we've previously had 2 class winners - The Abominable Eggman and Egg-Cercise - both of which then sat on a shelf in the living room for just slightly longer than I could bear before we were able to discretely remove them to the bin.

Because my 2 little ones are in the Foundation Stage of school they don't have to make a stunning miniature land of 'L-Egg-O' or 'Egg-citement' just yet, but still effort is expected, by not only the school, but the other pupils. The little ones in Foundation have to decorate their egg and then take it to school and care for it for a whole week.

So on Sunday night at about 5pm when we suddenly remembered, it was all systems go....

The 5 year old wanted to make Darwin - the goldfish from 'The Amazing World Of Gumball'.

Colour blindness may have played a weeny part, he actually spent ages getting just the right colour for his fish...and painted it egg-coloured. Brilliant.

He drew a very sweet little face and then some overly-large teeth which did confuse us a bit, but hes very happy with it. An empty Ferrero Rocher tub and some tissue paper and voila, a tank.

Our 4 year old is a bit of a breakeriser. He can think about things in a different room and they're already broken. The idea of him caring for a boiled egg for a week isn't a reassuring one. He wanted to make a Ben 10 egg, and my partner immediately had a plan.

A cut down Pringles tube covered in Duck Tape was perfect protection. The lid even fits beautifully, and a Ben 10 logo using white Duck Tape coloured in with felt tip. Job's a goodun.

 Inside, nestled in bubble wrap. Ben 10 Egg himself....

So off we went to school, I carried them all the way. I gave them back to my children inside the school, as they were going into class. Delivery successful...

The precious eggs spend the time children are working in the Egg Hotel, where they also spend their nights. At designated times the children take their eggs with them and hold them carefully, or carry them to a new location. It's a great exercise in being careful. Should any minor disasters happen the eggs have to go to the Egg Hospital, where they have plasters very carefully applied by a teacher. The parents are charged for visits to the Hospital and stays in the Hotel, and the money goes to charity. Last year cost me 65p.

This year, with 2 eggs to worry about I actually cheered when found out that both eggs survived Monday unscathed. It was short-lived.

By the end of day 2 today we have had 3 visits to the Egg Hospital and in spite of his protective case, Ben 10 was looking decidedly shattered. I think by Friday I'm likely be taking home 2 lumps of white boiled egg and a handful of plasters....but at least we'll have a cool Ben 10 pot for storing treasure......I hope....

UPDATE - Here's how the week ended!