Sunny side up

When I started Chasing Spring, the Saturday after Ash Wednesday, I joked that I would be giving up living at home for Lent. Now that Easter has come and gone and I've spent over 40 days on the road away from home, family, friends, my own bed and hob, and privacy (blissful privacy!), I'm wondering whether there was more to that throwaway comment than I realised. I think there's value in the idea of depriving yourself of something, as long as it's approached with the right attitude - and that doesn't have to be a religious one. Being away from home has often been a stressful and lonely experience, but hopefully I'll appreciate it more when I return.

In the same way, I think a celebration such as Easter has a meaning above and beyond the religious one. It can't be a coincidence that most faiths have major festivals around this time of the year. People celebrated the end of winter and long hours of darkness, announced and divided the spring harvest, feasted, danced, sang, gave thanks and made promises for the coming year (which are easier to make in the sunshine). And they would have done all this together.

Shared events, festivals and celebrations are still an excuse to get together as families - nuclear and extended - and as local communities. They also make us feel part of a wider community, knowing that thousands, even millions, of people across the world are doing the same thing at the same time. Which is why I went to church yesterday morning.

We were staying in a suburb of Dunfermline, a town that's generally run-down and pretty deprived, so I approached not knowing what to expect. But the church was packed, sizzling with heat and spring flowers, and alive with children's laughter and tears. It was a genuinely joyful place to be, even if many people came solely for the Easter eggs dished out to the kids at the end. I wasn't with my family but somehow being in this church, side by side with families of strangers, I felt closer to them than I have done in weeks.

Afterwards, as if to compensate for the newly solemn mood, Matt and I tried to find and interview the Easter Bunny. I'd been told he (or she?) would be bouncing around the town but apparently they'd been through on Saturday and probably spent Easter Sunday nursing a pint (for the hops, yeah?)

So Easter has come and gone and my strange springtime pilgrimage continues.