For me, Good Friday was once about quiet contemplation and the commemoration of Christ’s passion, with perhaps a flick through the more preposterous bits of the Old Testament to lighten the mood of that sombre day.

Now that atheism has become ‘the new black’, like so many others of my generation I’ve abandoned my birth religion. These days I’m proud to call myself a card-carrying Pantheist. (The ‘card’ could be an interesting rock, or a few seeds, a bird’s feather, or any number of things created by Nature.)

And so it came to pass that we happily spent the evening of this year’s Good Friday in the company of good friends, eating and drinking a little too much.

On Easter Saturday morning, feeling  we’d been bludgeoned a little about the head, we threaded our way through Daylesford’s visitor-packed shops to buy a few supplies.

It was too beautiful a day to be inside and after lunch followed by a creaky matinee movie (That Hamilton Woman), we felt restored enough for a not-too-challenging stroll. We opted for a totter around the crater of our local Mount Vesuvias, Mount Franklin.

With the perfectly enunciated twaddle of Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson still rattling around our brains, it was too late in the day for anything other than a short walk in the sunset.

We expected to encounter one or two picnickers  at the mount. We weren’t prepared for a crowd of tourists clogging up the access road, holding up traffic as they captured each other on digital cameras with the mount as a backdrop.

Daunted by all that colour and movement, we drove on to Vaughan Springs where we hoped the madding crowds had departed.

As you know, we’re fans of Vaughan Springs. We’ve often walked there, enjoyed the odd picnic beneath its shady trees and taken visitors to admire its scenic attractions (including the big slippery dip).

This time I wanted to see it from a different angle. Breaking with tradition, we parked just off the main road and approached the picnic area on foot via the camp ground. Had I been alone, I’d have been looking down – as any self-respecting Pantheist would – for interesting rocks, insects, plants and sticks (while harbouring a futile hope that I’d spot nuggets dropped by a careless prospector a century and a half ago).

Unfettered by such avarice, my partner looked all around him. He’s a highly observant and inquisitive individual who misses little (unlike I, whose powers of observation have been stunted by religion and TV). We weren’t far from the car when he abruptly stopped and pointed upwards.

Was it a comet hurtling towards us? Was it God’s punishment for our pagan enjoyment of Easter? (The guilt… the guilt… will it ever leave me?)

No, it was a pair of Tawny Frogmouths, so still that they appeared to have been carved from the same branch on which they sat.

Then the smaller one nuzzled the other with its beak, as if asking, ‘Where’s me dinner?’ I guessed they were mother and son.

Vaughan Springs was blissfully quiet. A young couple prepared their evening meal on a barbeque while their children played among the trees.

As we clambered past old pines and wild roses bearing glossy red hips, the sun dipped down to the ridge, casting the valley into darkness.

Smoke from distant fires gauzed the landscape in a beautiful mystery. I felt deeply content with my new religion.