I had the perfect Easter... well nearly.

You might ask what I did that was so great and “well nothing, actually” would be the answer.

No late nights, hardly any chocolate or beer, just a nice weekend at home far away from the commercialism of Easter, the traffic and the hordes endeavouring to get their money’s worth out of the four days at whatever the cost.

No matter what all the gloom and doom merchants say, we are so lucky to be living on the Sunshine Coast.

It certainly is a truly beautiful part of the world.

The “nearly” part was Sunday when I had the brainwave to take my dear old mum to church to see her favourite Reverend, Keith Mayers, who is at the Presbyterian Church at Tewantin.

Mum has known him for many years and he has been very good to her so I thought it would be a nice touch to go to the Easter service seeing he is now in Tewantin and the old girl hasn’t got a car anymore so it is a while since she has seen him.

My wife and I joined Edna for the trip north and just in case you are wondering, the church didn’t shake at its foundations when I walked in and I enjoyed the service immensely.

But I will say that God does work in mysterious ways as the hymn book they gave the three of us had the smallest writing I have ever seen... or in this case not.

Now the only one that could read the verse was 85-year-old Edna with no glasses, and remarkably she has never owned any.

The other two Easter bunnies couldn’t read a word, our arms weren’t long enough, which was a Godsend because we were both unable to sing and I am sure the rest of the congregation was truly grateful.

The service was concluded with a cup of tea and a piece of a giant egg – a lovely way to finish the morning off.

We headed home via the motorway and that was when the better half piped up and said “why don’t you go off one of the roundabouts and show Edna the coastal strip”.

I thought it was a nice gesture until her true motive emerged when we drove past a murky swamp.

“Pull up here, there is some of that stuff that floats in our fish pond that we need, it costs twenty bucks at the garden shop you know.”

After some convincing I pulled up, parked the car in a paddock with the motor running with assurance from the crazy woman beside me that she saw some growing over a rock on the edge so it wouldn’t take long.

Of course that wasn’t the case and there I was under serious supervision on my hands and knees in my Sunday best being told “get right down underneath, you have to get the roots out as well”.

The last time I dug with my hands in a swamp I was about eight years old and I was in Eudlo Creek digging for lobbies.

As I dug down in the water I was thinking about old car bodies or in fact dead bodies or worse, snakes.

Eventually I got what she wanted as well as gothic style finger nails and off we went back to the car where she lined up at the boot about to dump them in before I found and old bit of rag in the bush to put them on.

So off we went on our way with smell of tepid water in my nostrils and wondering what it will do to the boot of my car but being told by the other two to “drink a can of toughen up”.

The rest of the day went well until about midnight when I woke up with a throbbing hand and remembered I had scratched it on a stick the previous morning.

I lay on the bed in the dark doing the sums – cut hand plus swamp plus digging in the mud equals infected hand, visit to the doctor, a course of antibiotics, and a professional cleaner to get the smell out of the boot.

Conclusion, next time go to a garden shop.