It is Holy Saturday or Easter Eve. Not, kindly please note, Easter Saturday, which will not take place until several days after Easter Day. Although it seems like we’ve been waiting for it for ever, Easter is actually quite early this year. Much to the annoyance of teachers, travel agents and the owners of garden centres, the date of Easter fluctuates by as much as a whole lunar cycle, in a way that can be a decidedly inconvenient interruption to the highest of purpose of humanity, namely making as much money as possible with the minimum effort and outlay.

The way that the date of Easter can’t be fixed and made subject to organisational requirements is somehow rather satisfying, a visible challenge to today’s deification of wealth creation, and an implicit rebuke to capitalism and its assumption that there is nothing more important in life than generating profit and increasing growth. The inconvenience of the timing reminds us that what happened at the first Easter was something beyond human control, and that resurrection is more than learning some new organisationally effective habits. (The way that Christians can’t even agree about the date amongst themselves is also an important – but alas often ignored – corrective to any tendency towards smug complacency on the part of the religiously minded.)

I certainly feel in need of a bit of a break. After the long haul since Christmas, there is always a sense of relief at the prospect of a little bit of restful inactivity – or at least not going to work – that comes with the Easter weekend. Even better, it’s getting warmer and the days are getting longer; and there is, if not actually spring, then at least evidence that it is not far off. The force that through the green fuse drives the flower – in Dylan Thomas’s wonderful phrase – has been switched back on. Even if the sap isn’t actually rising, there is certainly more energy – and the idea of going back to the gym no longer seems hideously masochistic or ridiculously unrealistic. (It still hasn’t happened, however.)

It’s good to be back with the family. I am providing puddings for Sunday lunch, and even have all Saturday to do it. This is the soft option: my sister is doing the main course, despite going to Gloucestershire for the day. My niece – also going to Gloucestershire – is doing her own vegetarian thing, which gives the carnivores an extra vegetable.

As I’ve been having a bit of a bread and butter pudding thing going on, I decide to do another one, but with hot cross buns. I’m too lazy to make these, and so buy them from the local bakery, Heidi’s, an establishment that takes its carbohydrates very seriously and inclines to the solid rather than the delicate. My sister, whose preference is very much for elegant patisserie over Teutonic stodge, majestically dismisses Heidi’s emporium as somewhere that she’s never had much time for. That said, they do incline to the heavy, and one would not be surprised if the eponymous owner were referred to by her partner these days as my little dumpling (and maybe no longer as little).

As well as the hot cross buns, I also buy some lemon curd from Heidi’s for Nigella’s lemon curd pavlova, a ludicrously easy Easter pudding, if you use bought curd. During the afternoon my mother gardens, and I make the pavlova. As there will be only 5 of us, I use only 4 eggs instead of Nigella’s 6. The result is nevertheless huge – I did use extra large eggs – and expands enormously in the oven, leaving me with something of a problem when it comes to finding something large enough to serve it on.

Nigella’s Lemon Curd Pavlova

A gloriously easy pavlova for those occasions when passionfruit are too expensive or unavailable.What’s pleasing about this is how it uses lemon juice instead of the more usual vinegar.Perfect culinary accessorisation.

4 large egg whites

250g caster sugar

2 and a half teaspoons of cornflour

2 unwaxed lemons

50g flaked almonds

300ml double cream

1 x 325g jar of lemon curd

Preheat oven to 180C and line a large lightly oiled baking tray with baking parchment.

Beat egg whites until peaks form. Then beat in sugar, a spoonful at a time, until meringue is stiff and shiny.

Sprinkle cornflour over meringue, and grate over the zest of one lemon finely. (If you do it in larger slivers, they will end up as deliciously chewy lumps, which isn’t necessary a bad thing.). Add two teaspoons of lemon juice.

Gently fold everything together until thoroughly mixed. Mound onto the lined baking tray in a fat circle approximately 23 cm in diameter, smoothing the sides and making the top level. (It will be turned upside down, so there is no point in making a depression in the pavlova for the filling.)

Place in oven. Turn down temperature to 150C and cook for 1 hour.

Remove from oven and leave to cool.

Dry fry almonds in a pan over a heat until they have coloured, shaking the pan regularly. This takes less than a minute. Tip onto a cold plate until ready to serve.

When ready to serve, turn the pavlova upside down onto a serving dish and peel away the baking parchment.

Whip cream gently till thick. Don’t overbeat.

Put curd into a bowl.Beat to loosen and add some lemon zest and a squeeze of juice.

Spread curd on top of meringue base. Top with whipped cream. Sprinkle with more lemon zest and the flaked almonds.

I realise that not providing a chocolate based pudding – or at least a chocolate cake – at Easter is deeply counter-cultural, but I know not all the family is that keen on chocolate, and, after all there will be plenty of other opportunities over the next few days. In any case, not doing the obvious – and avoiding that coals to Newcastle sort of feeling – does rather please me.

My mother and I have roast chicken thighs with roasted vegetables, followed by a lemon cheesecake from Aldi that my mother is fond of for some reason – a very easy dinner.

Neither my mother nor I go to the Easter Vigil – a service much beloved of liturgical anoraks, but rather tedious for everyone else. Instead we watch King’s at Easter. When it’s been shown to work so well for Christmas, it seems rather surprising that it took someone so long to have the idea. But then, the obvious is often overlooked until someone dares to bring it to people’s attention. As it hasn’t been done before, it had a much fresher, less predictable feel to it than the Christmas nine lessons and carols, which doesn’t actually seem to have much room for variation, let alone surprise, these days. I was expecting a lot more renaissance polyphony, but we actually had quite a lot of comparatively recent English material – more Bairstow and Elgar than Tallis and Byrd. I do hope that the BBC and Kings will repeat this experiment until it becomes a tradition.