The Big Egg Hunt: Round-up: It’s all over!

Yesterday at lunch time I made a speed trip to the Black Rock building near Liverpool Street and photographed egg no 210, Panda, my last outstanding egg from The Big Egg Hunt 2012.

In total over the last month I have photographed all 209 of the eggs on display (no 57 has never been delivered) across the 12 different zones. It’s been an awesome experience going from one zone to the next, picking out my favourites… even when I haven’t managed to track down the eggs the first time and have had to come back again to scoop up the missing ones. Oddly enough some of the random ones have been my favourites like:

The Mayoral Egg

 

Mr Egg

It’s important not to forget what the egg hunt is really about, which is raising money for two awesome charities Elephant Family and Action For Children. And if you do spot any of the eggs around in your wanderings, take a moment to text in the unique codes on a few of them. You can win a Faberge Egg worth £100,000 and the money charged for the texts goes to the charities.

Speaking of winning, I have been retweeting my little heart out for all of the Egg Hunt competitions on the go and was lucky enough to be one of the winners of the Maria Grachvogel prize. Maria Grachvogel designed The Obsidian Egg and also makes some pretty funky clothes, accessories and homewares. I’m not exactly sure what will be in the hamper that I’ve won but I can’t wait to find out.

If anyone still wants to see any of the eggs but can’t be arsed with the hunting, they’re all going to be on display in Covent Garden from 3 – 9 April, so head down, dodge the tourists and I hope you enjoy them as much as I have. Or you could just check out my album…

The Big Egg Hunt: Day 11: Zone 5: St James Park

It’s not often you get a glorious day in March in London but Saturday was bordering on Summery so I was glad that I had left St James’ Park as my final egg hunting zone, not just because it tied in with the return of the famous, Rainforest, which was finally back on its plinth after being smashed by vandals early in the hunt.

St James is without question my favourite London park, mostly because it is so incredibly pretty. Check out these awesome flowers behind me.

I was not the only one looking for eggs and the park was full of families running around with cameras. There were a couple of sneaky finds, including the fascinatingly named Crochetdermy Fox, in the Café.

And Humpty Dumpty, in the end very logically on the wall where the Queen’s horse guards reside. We even got to see them marching around a bit.

I haven’t quite finished the hunt yet. I have two more eggs to find in the next couple of days and then I’ll be doing a final round-up blog, but here’s a snap of me in egg-hunting action, taken by my long-suffering husband. I can’t believe it’s almost over!

The Big Egg Hunt: Day 10: Zone 12: Canary Wharf

On Friday evening I decided to take the egg hunt east and hit the Canary Wharf zone. I’ve never really been a fan of the “City”. With all the glass and skyscrapers it doesn’t feel like the London I love, me being a fan of the general rundown tattiness of the West End.

However, this time as I explored the futuristic little parks on top of underground shopping malls and roamed from plaza to plaza I found a new respect for this very young part of the city. While I don’t think I’ll ever feel the same great love for it that I do for Soho, there is something to be said for an area that appears to be purpose built rather than ingenious cobbled together with varying results. It’s also great for egg hunting since everything is so magnificently well laid out and sign posted.

I found some awesomely quirky eggs. Including the glowing, Algorithm.

The funky see-through, It is but it isn’t.

And , Anatomy of a Building, which was auctioned for £40,000!

Unfortunately my new respect for Canary Wharf faded when I decided to head home only to discover that the Jubilee Line was part suspended, leaving me functionally stranded in EC1. Apparently this happens often. I think I’ll stick to W1, thanks!

The Big Egg Hunt: Day 9: Zone 3: Knightsbridge & Sloane Square

Yesterday Mr Osbiston and I ventured out on the hunt for eggs again, this time to the Knightsbridge and Sloane Square zone. It’s a pretty cool zone as all the Sloaney ones are really close together around the station and the Knightsbridge ones are too. Once again I was a bit taken aback by the sheer level of poshness of the locals. Although these were a slightly different breed to the old money snobs around Mayfair. This group are all young with slicked back hair and pastel jeans – think Spencer from Made In Chelsea. If nothing else, the egg hunt has given me some awesome insight into the tribes of London.

There were some great eggs in the zone including:

The rather creepy, Pandora.

The brilliantly named, Polar Bear Ballet.

And the very delicate, First Spring in Eden.

Unfortunately the zone also heralded my ropiest egg photo so far. This is Rooster Weather Vane. Situated high up on some scaffolding, behind some poles, the location just wasn’t a match for my phone’s camera.

This is what it’s supposed to look like.

Boo to Tommy Hilfiger for putting their egg on decking outside their building but then refusing to let anyone go out on it for health & safety reasons, but thanks to the lovely employee who unlocked the door for me so I could lean out and try to take a decent photo.

Also massive respect to the doorman of the Jumeirah Lowndes Hotel, who has clearly gotten into the spirit of the egg hunt and happily points it out to anyone who is interested. I’ve encountered quite a few doormen in the last month, and you sir, are a true gentleman!

As always photos of all the eggs I have found so far are here.

The Big Egg Hunt: Day 8: Zone 2: Mayfair – Part 2

Last night I returned to Mayfair to round up some more of the glut of eggs in the zone. It was an interesting experience. Early on I think I got chatted up by one of the sales assistant in the Ozwald Boateng shop on Savile Row… Well either he was chatting me up or he called me fat. I didn’t stick around to find out.

I also found myself in a bit of town that was initimidatingly posh. I thought we’d seen posh when we did the first half of Mayfair but this was a whole different ball game. Front door had a doorman in a bowler hat who was clearly sick of non-Mayfair natives scruffing up the place taking egg photos in front of their buildings. And you couldn’t walk for having to jump out of the way of black cabs ferrying middle aged women in hats and furs. I think the Mayfair life is probably not for me.

I had to fight the light a bit in the zone as the dark crept in rapidly, and Mayfair, while beautiful is not so big on outdoor lighting, but here are some of my favourite eggs.

The Birth of a Legend

Remarkable Connections

Fragile

Remember you can see all 162 eggs I have collected so far here.