It’s Mother’s Day and I have done my usual, posting the Dove ad on every single platform in wild abandon. Even Linkedin this time which is a bit of a corporate/me clambering into a bath weird crossover but I figured it was fine because the world is burning etc etc and it’s Sunday and who doesn’t love a post on a professional networking site which shows you five months post-partum hoicking up your jeans on a trampoline? Here it is, in case I haven’t shoved it down your throats yet over the years: https://youtu.be/I9XX1GApIAE?si=Udh2J_Vlbn7UtnNt

So Mother’s Day has been a solo one because Mark and Remi are in New Zealand for nearly the whole of March. The trip has been a long time coming – Mark was meeting with his brother and sisters for a memorial service for his parents and bringing Remi with him because he’s never been to the Old Country and it seemed like a good opportunity. The school were a bit cranky when I mentioned it and the terrifying office lady raised her eyebrows when I got flustered and panicked and said the trip was for a grandparent’s funeral which wasn’t true really but how do you explain the complications of a long period of sickness over the lockdown and the eventual death of a grandmother and the sad end to a grandfather a year later and then the need to wait because by that point it was about the formal ceremony of goodbye rather than rushing back for a service, and the difficulty of timing and the way that the longer you don’t go back, the harder it seems to be able to return? How the flight feels impossible and the coordinating of dates and places and headstone choices and wording and where you’re going to go after and where people will stay and who’s invited anyway – all feels very daunting and so you just have to one day find a flight and rip your kid out of school to come with you because it’s just the right thing to do. But not if you are the office lady.

Anyway, the school and I already had a fight over bringing the dog to the school drop off so I will just have to make peace with the fact that we are Those Dickhead Parents. I do always sign the reading record book though and never let Remi have a day off and have never been late dropping him to school in the morning. Admittedly I do not attend the coffee morning sessions and I haven’t engaged very well generally, but then this is kid number six and I’ve been participating in nursery, primary, and secondary school life for 18 years and so I feel like I have kind of paid my dues.

Watch this space. I am hoping Remi comes back still able to read and do pretty good maths. He got second in the schoolwide maths challenge so I think he’s probably pretty brainy – though he told me that ‘Second is something I am going to have to live with’, a sentiment no doubt straight from his trolling older brothers. Here he is at Matapouri Beach a few days ago, looking like his school maths challenge placement is not so much a concern:

Birthdays. Ned had a 16th:

And we hosted a very successful Trivial Pursuits night which went a little too long but got the kids joining in which was so good:

Half term was an ill-timed documentary filming day at our place, so I needed to get the dog and all the kids out at 7am when they really wanted to be sleeping in, not to return until 8pm. We decided to spend the day eating at cafes to avoid the rain and to kill time before being able to drop the dog off at Chris and Owen’s. Boys apparently need two breakfasts and after lunch and the cinema was chucked in, the spend for the day was £250. Yes. Ouch.

First breakfast:

Immediate second breakfast:

I got paid and so bought more stuff to put on the walls. My constant refrain is “Could we please get the art on the walls” but it requires ladders and spirit levels and quite a lot of cursing so Mark doesn’t get them all up in one go (and I do keep adding to the pile). He kind of ignores the constant refrain, probably for the simple reason that he doesn’t really mind much about the art work leaning on the floor in piles. He did decide that we needed some HUGE garden furniture though, and we had a blazing row about it. I said “LOOK YOU CAN’T SEE THE GARDEN NOW AND YOU CAN’T OPEN THE RANCH SLIDERS WITHOUT FALLING INTO THIS HUGE GARDEN FURNITURE” but he was like “YOU ARE SO HARD TO PLEASE. I BROUGHT THIS HUGE GARDEN FURNITURE HOME FOR YOU!” And I was like “I just want the artwork up, bro.”

Anyway, this is currently propped up somewhere:

And here’s the huge garden furniture:

See what I mean?

Here’s Remi the day he left to the Southern Hemisphere:

Here’s an old pic from when I was more engaged in primary school happenings:

Here’s a photo from last week when we braved the new Whiteleys bar which is a behemoth of fancy stealable bar accoutrements. Tiny metal pineapple-topped swizzle sticks just BEGGING to go home in a handbag. And £21 cocktails. But it was worth it because we raised a glass to our dear, darling, beautiful friend Vicki whom we all miss very much. No stealing this time because that would have been crass:

Me and this curly-topped treasure who accompanied me to a Wales Bonner sample sale and stood in line for two hours in the cold and never complained once. He is too much that kid – too much goodness and joy and trolling and rage-baiting and brains and charm. I honestly am a lucky lady:

This guy is a good one too. He’s doing very well at school and so we celebrated by eating a massive pizza each:

Today he said he would indeed spend Mother’s Day with me and so we went to the Wallace and Gromit exhibition at the Young V&A and then we ventured to Spitalfields and Brick Lane for (two) lunches:

I got a delightful card from the boys this morning with the sweetest (possibly AI-generated) messages and a huge bunch of flowers and so frankly my Mothering cup runneth over. With that., I will go pour myself an actual cup. Happy Sunday, all.