Mothering Sunday
When the Vicar marvelled over a recipe for 'Penis Stew' in a Two Fat Ladies' cookbook, my mother roamed the Home Counties in search of an abattoir that would supply a bull's glory to expand his culinary repertoire. When intuition told her that I was ill was during a phone call from university, she got in the car at 5am and drove 120 miles to nurse me. When my newborns wore me down at night, a dressing-gowned figure would emerge from the guest room and bear them away till dawn. When I admired a garment or a garden plant it would turn up inside my luggage when I reached home. When the children grew, the bottom drawers in two chests were cleared to become treasure stores and were filled with novelties when they visited. When, the day after her accident, I was clearing the Christmas presents she'd begun buying, I found she'd remembered the rose hand cream I'd once raved over and predicted the 11 year-old's craving for a jewellery casket. Everythi...
