Mum's blog: Words From The North

Well, it’s Wednesday fortnight and it’s time again for my blog within a blog. For those of you who might have started reading in the last fortnight (hello! {waves}), my mother has very kindly started writing a blog post once a fortnight, here is her introduction so you can get started at the beginning, and is sharing with the world her thoughts on things as diverse as the Queen Mother’s knickers to the rampant theft of handknitted items from Minis in the 1970s.

Although this is all getting a bit meta, I feel I do have to assure you that this is indeed by my mother and I have not written it. I would also like to tell you that my mother used to write me letters just like this (with bonus clip art) when I was at university, and I used to go and pick them up from the Porters' Lodge when everyone else had got stiff white invitations to posh things and letters about internships in large accountancy firms. My Aunty Kath used to send me letters also in the same vein, only hers were on old-fashioned printer paper in large handwriting so when I lifted them out of the envelope all the sheets were joined together with perforations in the side and my letter would be 6 feet long.

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WORDS FROM THE NORTH

This first paragraph is in response to Susie’s request for ‘Whatever Happened to‘? [Note from me, we were talking about this after Blog Week and really I felt my mother’s experience should be included].

Whatever happened to... MY ARAN CARDIGAN?
When I was 27 years old, I knitted an Aran Cardigan. The pattern required me to give up my social life and stay at home every day for one year reading the instructions of each row as I knitted it, the cardigan and I were inseparable. The cardigan wasn’t perfect, I somehow managed to knit the left front three inches longer than the right front, but if I lifted my left shoulder and leaned slightly to the right, I could almost lose its imperfection. On a very hot day in June I finally finished it, my pride was immeasurable . I had to wear it even though it was unbearably hot, but when the temperature reached 80F I reluctantly decided to take it off and carefully placed it on to the back seat of my blue mini whilst I happily went shopping. One hour later when I returned, some discerning thief (b******)  had broken into my car and stolen it. The policeman who took my statement and fingerprints (I’m not quite sure why) said, ‘we will notify you when we catch the thief’, I’m still waiting…………………

My mother's rhubarb, photographed in the early evening. There are normally sheep over that hedge and sometimes cows

On my last birthday I decided that for one year I would try to experience one new thing every week. Last week I exceeded all my own expectations and managed two. I went to watch a football match and ate Nettle Crumble [my nettle crumble ;-) ]. Apparently, Chesterfield FC is heading for promotion and the family insisted that I needed to be there. The crowd was very rowdy and the gentleman sitting next to my other half informed him that he was recovering from a recent heart by-pass operation and his doctor had told him not to get excited. The man said ‘I’m all right though because I’ve brought my daughter with me just in case’.
The nettle crumble was a delicious surprise, thanks Susie but I took a spoon of Gaviscon, ‘just in case’.

I recently visited McArthur Glen Shopping outlet off Junction 28 of the M1 motorway and purchased a genuine Radley handbag for half the RRP which is currently being asked in the House of Fraser. My son says I am becoming a Chav.

Finally, thank you to every-one who took the time to read my words and send in such lovely comments. I must admit that after giving the royal family a mention I did think they might have reciprocated by sending me a small token of appreciation, perhaps a tiara would have been nice. I mention this because I have been invited to a 50th birthday party in Edinburgh on the 29th April, dress code Tiara and Black tie and I seem to have misplaced mine.

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Thank you again mum! And I am frantically looking for something for the party which is not Birkenstocks and a cardigan and costs no more than £7.99, I think this will be easy to find. Mum will be returning again in a fortnight unless Hello magazine snaps her up in the meantime, or they start a programme called The Real Housewives Of The High Peak in which case understandably she may be busy, so we will make the most of her while we can.