Happy Easter, everyone! The daffodils are putting on a show. They don’t last, as A. E. Housman reminds us in The Lent Lily, which makes them all the more precious.

I don’t expect these chocolates to last either, though I myself am guiltless in the matter. Sometime in the mid-90’s, I lost my taste for anything but dark chocolate, which means these bunnies and carrots are all for the kids.

Chocolate cakes, however, are a different matter. Don’t think I’m not going to eat them all, because I am.

Last weekend, we had family in town, so we celebrated Easter a little early. There was lots of cheese, because we love the fromage! We stopped at Cured, our favorite little wine and cheese shop in Boulder, not for the charcuterie or the giant pink piggy hanging from the ceiling, but for the Red Leicester and the brie. I’m not generally a huge fan of brie, having had too much mediocre double cream in my day, but I fell in love with their Green Hill brie, all delicious and grass-fed and Georgian. Now I want to eat it all the time.

Also spent a lovely afternoon in Larimer Square, where we reveled in the sunshine, tried on a few Easter hats, and discovered shiny baubles. Osteria Marco had a suspended piggy like the one at Cured, this one with a bronzy Old World patina. We loved their pizza with chevre, loved sitting in the sun.

We went shopping for Easter hats and I found all kinds of millinery creations at Goorin Bros. One of my companions commissioned a gorgeous custom hat with lots of extra feathers, but I’ve learned that having to wait for a item is actually a good way to stop yourself from buying something you’re not sure about, so I left the shop empty-handed.

On the way back from the hat shop, we slipped into Victoriana, the most exquisite antique jewelry store in Denver. Gorgeous vintage jewels! I loved the Art Nouveau pieces, the mine-cut Victorian gemstones, the Bakelite bracelets, and all the pretties. When I finish my new novel, I’m going back for a little reward. Within budget, of course.

Back at home, our kitty Snowy has acquired a luminous Easter halo, as a result of sutures for biopsies we’ll know more about later. She’s not a patient kitty and she hates her new costume, but Easter has come early for her this year, in the form of canned seafood, three times a day. She tells me it’s delicious.