musing along I wonder why Mothering Sunday isn't the same on both sides of the Atlantic. It really surprised me to learn that it isn't celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent everywhere. My mother-in-law used to repeat a rhyme she'd learned in childhood:
Mothering Sunday,
Care away,
Palm Sunday,
Easter Day
Of course, that could have been caraway, she pronounced both the same way, but the point was that it pinpointed Mothering Sunday to three weeks before Easter Sunday and made it possible to find the movable feast. Apparently in the US it's nailed to the month of May.
Anyway, our roving Mothers' Day arrived last Sunday. It was quite an unusual one, the first that my husband ever had to work. He has a new job, you see, working a shift pattern that begins on Sunday afternoon one week, Monday morning the next. This was a Sunday starting week and so the usual activities, such as an outing somewhere picturesque or a meal out could not take place. No matter, my two girls were there. One gave me breakfast in bed, the other cooked lunch. Lovely - my heart is definitely most easily reached through my digestive system - perhaps I ought to have that mentioned on my medical notes, just in case.
Tilly, the younger one, had also given me a lovely card depicting a child pegging hankies and other small things on a washing line. The caption above read: "Mum, what I think of you could be summed up in one line" and various items on the line had lovely words inscribed on them. What's more, she'd done a load of washing, all deep pink and soft and fragrant. The day was bright and breezy and I knew she'd put them in specially so I'd have a little light billowing to enjoy.
Yes, I know I'm a little odd to enjoy putting out washing, but it can be an art form, you know, with a little thought. The fact that getting things pegged out right can remove the need for ironing is a bonus, I grant you, but a beautifully arranged row of co-ordinated items all blowing in the wind - it's worth a song at the very least. Fortunately for my neighbours, I don't indulge.
