ONLY two days to go before you can start tucking into your Easter eggs, because of course you haven't eaten any yet, have you? The shelves are crammed full of eggs - big eggs, small eggs, eggs with toys, with egg cups, fluffy chicks and cuddly bunnies. Such a lot of choice.

Well, not exactly. If you want or need an Easter egg that's for a diabetic, or a vegan, or someone with a nut or dairy allergy, or if you just want something as simple as a Fair Trade or organic egg, then your choices are severely limited.

In fact, it's pathetic that with all that chocolate the major manufacturers are fattening us up with, they couldn't do a bit more for those on special diets.

Anyway, we have been breaking all the rules of Easter eggs and sampling them through Lent - purely in the interests of others, of course, and to discover some of the specialist eggs there are available.

FOR DIABETICS

THORNTONS DIABETIC EASTER EGG WITH CHOCOLATE ASSORTMENT, £6.50 for 165g

Hollow egg with six chocolates. The chocolate was fine - not very exciting but perfectly acceptable. Our complaint, oddly, was with the packaging. Every other shelf in Thorntons was awash with bunnies and chicks and ribbons and there in the middle sat the diabetic range looking unutterably boring in dull maroon and grey. Can't diabetics have a bit of frivolous packaging too?

SCHWERMER TRUFFLE AND NOUGAT EGGS FOR DIABETICS, £2.89

Four small eggs, not much bigger than your normal truffle but in a bunny decorated box. Expensive but absolutely delicious and a cheerful treat.

FOR VEGANS

KINNERTONS DAIRY FREE EGG, £1.99 for 100g

Dark chocolate, dairy free, nut free and suitable for vegans.

Slightly bitter chocolate and some jelly sweets. But full marks to Kinnertons for packing their eggs in cartoon character boxes - Simpsons, for instance, so they look just like everyone else's eggs.

Kinnertons make all their eggs - including their standard cartoon range - in a nut-free zone. They have separated their production facilities into nut and nut-free zones "allowing millions of people to eat our chocolate with that special degree of reassurance".

TESCO FREE FROM PAIN CHOCOLATE EGG, £2.99 for 135g

Hollow egg with vanilla flavoured marshmallow twists - very rubbery.

This egg is free from nuts, eggs, gluten, wheat and dairy. The chocolate was very chocolatey - 50 per cent cocoa solids - but tasted a bit thin. Maybe because it used soya instead of milk. Very acceptable for adult tastes but maybe a bit bitter for children

BOOJA BOOJA ORGANIC LUXURY EASTER EGG, £10.99

Organic, dairy-free, vegan, wheat-free, gluten-free, non GM. This egg is expensive but utterly above reproach. A dark chocolate egg - very good chocolate - and a box of hazelnut crunch rochers dusted in cocoa. All strong and rich and dark. "Everyone needs a little booja booja now and then," they say. Also included in the box is a little motto or "Boojagram". Ours said: "Practice a reliable attitude towards fish."

OK, so it doesn't make sense. But if you're a chocolate-loving vegan, so what?

FAIR TRADE

CO-OP FAIR TRADE MILK CHOCOLATE EGG WITH SOLID CHOCOLATE MINI EGGS, £3.99 for 265g

Very sweet milk chocolate egg. Perfect if you like sweet milk chocolate and with the added bonus that nobody's been exploited.

DUBBLE FAIR TRADE MILK CHOCOLATE EGG AND DUBBLE BAR, £2.99 for 140g

Perfectly good egg, milky chocolate. Pack's worth reading too, telling you where the cocoa beans are grown plus the fact that "pa pa pall" means "the best of all the best", in Twi, the language spoken in Ghana. Pack also boasts "with added Comic Relief" as 12 years ago, Comic Relief gave the farmers' co-operative a grant to help start their business.

ORGANIC

BOOJA BOOJA (see above)

DUCHY ORIGINAL ORGANIC MILK CHCOLATE EASTER EGG WITH MILK CHOCOLATE THINS, £8.95 for 227g

A disappointment. Although this had excellent ingredients - 44 per cent cocoa solids, organic sugar, whole milk powder etc, the result was a bit bland. Pleasant enough but no real rich chocolate taste - and at this price, you should expect a bit of richness.

OUR FAVOURITE

GREEN AND BLACK'S ORGANIC MILK CHOCOLATE EGG, £2.99 for 110g

Just a hollow egg but absolutely delicious chocolate - described as milk but really chocolatey and darker than normal sickly milk. Sort of halfway between milk and plain. Milk chocolate for grown-ups, though children loved this too (when we let them have a crumb). Perfect chocolate. Perfect egg. Our clear favourite. Roll on Easter morning...

PS ON PLANES

The airline that flies between Durham Tees Valley and London Heathrow, mentioned in last week's column, is bmi and not bmibaby - related but not the same, www.bmi.co.uk. And from May, Durham Tees Valley will actually be better connected to the outside world. The Tees Valley Sky Express - a shuttle bus, free for air travellers - will link the airport with Darlington railway station.

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