Mother's Day Restored

Last year, I failed to establish a quorum for Mother’s Day.

My powers of emotional blackmail were clearly beginning to wane.

However, this year, Nigel and the twins turned out for a Mother’s Day outing.  This despite Carenza having run a half marathon (involving 630m of elevation) just the morning before, and Perran having his bags packed for a fortnight’s work trip to Europe, leaving that afternoon.

Pascoe gets out of Mother’s Day on account of living in Edinburgh, although he did put in a lovely phone call.

We went to Kenwood House in Hampstead (English Heritage, free admission) where there is a stunning art collection.  It took my breath away.

Perran and Carenza incidentally recreated moments which recalled their childhood: 

·       They both supplied me with handmade cards (although nowadays elegantly lino-printed).

·       Due to a London Transport event, they arrived and left on by old-fashioned bus with a proper conductor and paper tickets – the kind of vehicle which used to fascinate younger Perran (and still does).

·       On encountering a dressing up opportunity in Kenwood house, they did not hesitate!

However, even I had to acknowledge they are very much adults as nowadays they are the ones who pay for Mother’s Day lunch.  There are some compensations in one’s babies growing up!

Thank you for a great day, Perran, Carenza, Pascoe and Nigel.

How I lost the battle of Mother's Day

Each year I become Mumzilla and insist on a Mother's day outing featuring at least two of my three children. (Use this link for outing ten years ago)

Last year we visited Sissinghurst  and this year we planned to build on the Vita Sackville-West theme.  Carenza and I had watched Orlando - both the current West End play and the Tilda Swinton film adapted from the Virginia Woolf novella in which she made clear her adoration of Vita.  Our Mother’s Day outing would be to Knole, the great Tudor pile which inspired Orlando.

Perran had a plausible alibi for Mother’s Day itself, so we went a week early.  Allowable slippage I thought. 

However, it turned out to be just the beginning of the rot setting in.

One of the purposes of having a Mother’s Day outing is to avoid the church service where all women are given a brightly coloured polyanthus.  (Something really annoys me about it, but I can’t put my finger on what.)   This year I had to contract an actual cold to get out of it.  Made me miserable for a few days, but worth it.

Then Pascoe’s Mother’s Day card arrived, adding a new layer of weirdness.  He had given a photo of me to an AI program and asked it to make me into a Roman lady (as I am a Classics teacher).  Unfortunately, he had selected a picture where I was holding a hedgehog (why?), which then rather dominated – see pic.

Maybe I should give Mother’s Day a rest.  After all, apart from grumbling and sending the occasional WhatsApp, I’m doing very little mothering nowadays – except of course, when I find an orphaned hedgehog.

 

 

A Mother's Day Service

At church, Mother’s day is called Mothering Sunday and is said to be the day when people would traditionally revisit their mother church – the one where they were baptised.

But I have always held this to be an evil rumour put about by clergymen who have forgotten to buy their mothers a card.

Mother’s Day is about ME.

Obviously.

So although I’m a regular churchgoer at St Luke’s, I usually eschew Mothering Sunday Services and force my benighted children to accompany me on a day trip into the countryside.

However, due to current guidelines, I couldn’t gather my offspring this year.  We phoned Nigel’s Mum in Northumberland, mine in Cornwall.  My kids Skyped and Zoomed in.

However, the thing that really made it feel like Mother’s Day was, paradoxically, church.

The church Mother’s Day service was not held this year owing to Covid 19.  In the Vicar’s garden paraded a legion of brightly-coloured pots of polyanthus. They had been purchased to hand out on Mother’s Day, but were now unclaimed.

A few of us who could not think up an excuse quickly enough were delegated to place these on the doorsteps of the women who should have received them.

Initially, the freezing East wind and the fact that my recipients were dotted all over town made me curse.  But then I got into it. 

I began to feel a bit like the Easter Bunny come early.

And in the end, one of the nicest things about my Mother’s Day was the thought of those other mothers opening their doors to an unexpected splash of colourful flowers.