Happy Mother's Day

I've had a lovely Mother's Day this year - if it weren't for Pumpkin pressing on my bladder and aiding the creation of tension knots under my right shoulder-blade I'd be feeling really relaxed. The day started well. I slept til 8am which I've not done for weeks, since Isabel stayed over with my mum last night (and was apparently up with a nightmare about rats at 5.30am, and never went back to sleep - oops, sorry Mum!). I met Mum and Isabel after they'd been for a swim, and we headed over to Regent's Park for lunch outdoors at the cafe. A second outdoor Sunday lunch in a row, and it's only mid-March - it's been beautiful weather the last couple of weeks. After a nice lunch we went to see my grandmother who plays tennis every week in Regent's Park (fitter than I am, and she's coming up on 80, puts me to shame), and then spent an hour in a lovely playground, including taking shoes and socks off and getting involved in the sandpit. When we'd dropped everyone home after tea and icecream, Isabel and Husbandio presented me with some lovely Mother's Day gifts - it really was a beautifully relaxing day. (Gifts included, as you can see, beautiful flowers and the DVD of Mamma Mia, plus 2 bars of chocolate - one with a bear saying "chocolate makes it all bearable" and the other looking like a packet of contraceptives, with the words Girth Control - luckily, I thought this was funny!)


Only one sad piece of news today - the death of Jade Goody. Beautifully ironic timing, as befits someone who lived much of her life in the media spotlight. I've never been a big Jade fan, and I laughed along with most of the rest of the nation at her appearance on Big Brother ("where is East Angular?" and "can you see my kebab?" etc). However, I did come to admire her tenacity and determination to succeed (often despite herself - her mouth was her worst enemy on several occasions, viz the Shilpa Poppadom incident), and also her ability to admit when she'd done something wrong or ill-advised. Goodness knows, very few people are good at that, myself included. Who likes admitting they're wrong, especially in the national press? And I also thought, from what I'd seen in the media anyway (and who knows the level of reality there?) that she seemed like a pretty good mother. Which is why her dying on Mother's Day is so ironic. Prince William was in the press the other day saying that he felt hollow every Mother's Day, and I can't imagine how awful it must be to try to avoid what can be cloyingly sentimental shop displays leading up to events like Mother's Day or Father's Day if you don't have a mother or father any longer. Or how awful it must be to lose a parent at such a young age, much as my own mother did. So, in addition to having enjoyed today's Mother's Day, I'm also counting myself extraordinarily lucky to still have both my parents, a lovely family, and the love and support of Husbandio and my beautiful Isabel. Thanks all of you - you make it all worth while.