From the archive: The Faberge Big Egg Hunt

In 2012, there was an egg hunt in London. 209 giant eggs had been designed and decorated by different artists, and were auctioned off for charity. They were spread out over London, and they really were spread out - everywhere from Canary Wharf to Kensington to Hyde Park. Ok, they were spread out over the more monied parts of London! The first Faberge Big Egg Hunt broke the world record for the Easter egg hunt with the most participants - more than 12 000.

I saw several of them when I was doing flower deliveries at the time, and made lots of mental notes to go back (on foot!) with a camera. I especially remember this striking egg cup design outside The Dorchester hotel. I would sit in the van just gazing at it as we went past. When I went back to photograph it, there was a family having their photo taken outside the hotel, which I thought was sweet.

I went to Canary Wharf one day...

...and the rest of London on days when I'd been delivering, after I finished work. I must have walked for miles and miles, but I still only found about 80 of the eggs. These are some of my favourites. I love the postbox one!

And here are some of the others - I'd love to share all of the egg photos, but there are way too many! This was in the window of the National Geographic shop - I'd forgotten, but then I noticed Harrods in the reflection. You may remember that I adore polar bears.

The egg at the top of this post was in the window of Peter Jones, where I once worked many years ago. Here are more around Sloane Square.

And more around other parts of London. Some of you can probably tell where some of these were.

Carnaby Street had several, but you had to look up sometimes.

There was the occasional disappointment. This missing egg was called Rose as well!

One of the lovely things about this egg hunt is that it got me to walk around London and see things I hadn't before. Such as this monument "in memory of the five million volunteers from the Indian sub-continent, Africa and the Caribbean who fought with Britain in the two world wars".

And the eggs in St James's Park led to a lovely walk around the park.

At the end of Easter, all of the eggs were transported back to Covent Garden to be displayed together, and I got to see some of the ones I'd missed. Another post is needed for those - there are too many photos here already!