Mothering Sunday

Photo copyright: Maggie May

Since I wrote my last post, the weather has turned much warmer and this coincided with an energy surge in me. Over the last two days, I was able to get out in the garden and prune things back, tidy the debris from the winter winds and do some jobs in the house that I normally would have done before, if I had felt able to.

In England we have Mother's Day completely out of sync with the rest of the world. It is really Mothering Sunday and was to do with the Church originally and it still is, though most people call it Mother's Day.

After we went to church in the morning, my son and granddaughters called round with cards and a present. My daughter had already sent hers in the post.

The day was lovely and sunny and pleasant.

I am so relieved not to be shivering and to be feeling stronger again on this special day.

The tub of narcissi and hyacinths that I received from the teacher last week is responding to the sunshine and the bulbs are opening up.

I have seen two wrens eying up the little pouches underneath the kitchen roof over hang. I hope they decide to nest there. I believe that they build three different nests and the female selects just one. I bet my husband is glad he isn't a wren. Having to provide one home was difficult enough.

The fox who visits our garden has very bad mange. It is pitiful to see the scabs completely covering his back. He looks so ill. One day when I was itching all over and tearing at my skin to the point of injuring myself due to chemo 4, the fox flopped under a shrub in the garden and tried to sleep in the watery sun. However, he was tearing at himself the whole time and had no peace from the irritation. I thought that we had something very much in common, except I don't have mange.

Lets hope that this change in the weather is here to stay.

A Perfect Mother's Day Weekend

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

In England we celebrated Mothering Sunday (Mother's day) last Sunday. I am not sure if other countries celebrated it on that date or not.

I was fortunate to have my granddaughters come to spend Friday night and Saturday, along with their Dad and they returned home in time to be with their own mum/wife for the Sunday. My daughter also came over from the east coast with the grandsons and spent the whole weekend. We had a packed house and Harry and I were kept very busy.

On Saturday we decided to go and visit a lovely Garden Centre, where we browsed for much of the afternoon.

I helped the eldest grandson, Rick to buy a present for his mum. I had thought it was going to be hard for Deb this year as she didn't have her husband to organize present buying with the children, as he died the previous autumn. Rick is autistic so he really needed to have some help with present buying. Dean, the younger brother, had already managed to buy a small gift from a school sale and both the boys had made their own cards.

I managed to get Rick on his own and asked what he wanted to get for his Mum. He had no money so I knew I would have to buy a present! He spent quite a long time looking and then spotted a huge dragon ornament. It was breathing fire and had wings open. It was obviously too expensive and was getting on for a hundred pounds!

Rick understood that he couldn't buy it but was hankering after that dragon for a long time and couldn't take his eyes off it and talked about it for a while afterwards.

Eventually we saw some small garden ornaments that we could afford, as Rick was completely set on buying one of these and he eventually bought a small stone donkey pulling a basket with room for a little plant to go in the back. He was very pleased with that.

We all bought something at the Garden Centre. My son, Sam, concentrated on buying things to eat for planting in his garden and came home carrying assorted currant bushes as well as a small tub of pretty flowers for the girls to give their mum.

On our way out, we noticed these upside down plants in pots and I just couldn't resist taking a photo of them. I have never seen anything quite like them before. However I resisted the temptation to have one as there was nothing that I could have attached one to in my pocket sized garden.

It was lovely and warm over the weekend.... just like summer. This week the weather turned around and it is as cold as winter again. However I will remember that Mother's Day weekend as a really pleasant one, spent with my family, receiving presents and being taken to put some silk flowers on my parents' grave.

The love of a family for each other, is not to be taken for granted.

I feel I shall remember this particular one in years to come! Maybe I am just being sentimental.

Photostory Friday is hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek.