Motherhood by Nora Heysen (1941)You can also find out more about Heysen and her work, here at Wikipedia
I spent Friday night catching up with Bean over a few bottles of white wine that were very more-ish and I was definitely NOT walking in a straight line by the time I stumbled to bed.
The NSN's decided to raise a merry rumpus, but not with their usual midnight mating calls this time. At 3 am they launched into one an unholy row that lasted at full volume for about an hour. Those noisy little monkeys.
The result was that all my provisional plans for the weekend imploded. I spent most of Saturday lying on my couch acting like a wounded princess:
"My head! My aching head! Oh why must I be TORTURED in this way?" and so on.
Of course this only lasted until Bean and my visiting brother left at mid-afternoon. Having lost my audience, I quit with the drama and curled up on the sofa with a book until I fell fast asleep.
Which is exactly where I woke up at 4.20 this morning. Damn.
Today, Mum and I, hopefully joined by my brother when he returns from his travels later, are going out for something to eat to celebrate the festivity that is Mother's Day. I don't get the impression that Mother's Day means a great deal to my mum, and I must confess I share her apathy. Mum and I see each other all year round, we're very close and she's a constant priority, so Mother's Day always feels a little, well, forced and pointless really.
Nonetheless, it's nothing out of the ordinary for me to meet up with la famille on a weekend anyway, and it's always better when we can all meet up at the same time.
Interestingly though, a quick search on Wikipedia tells me that most countries in the world celebrate Mother's Day, scattered throughout the year. Wikipedia reports the history of Mother's Day in the UK as follows:
The NSN's decided to raise a merry rumpus, but not with their usual midnight mating calls this time. At 3 am they launched into one an unholy row that lasted at full volume for about an hour. Those noisy little monkeys.
The result was that all my provisional plans for the weekend imploded. I spent most of Saturday lying on my couch acting like a wounded princess:
"My head! My aching head! Oh why must I be TORTURED in this way?" and so on.
Of course this only lasted until Bean and my visiting brother left at mid-afternoon. Having lost my audience, I quit with the drama and curled up on the sofa with a book until I fell fast asleep.
Which is exactly where I woke up at 4.20 this morning. Damn.
Today, Mum and I, hopefully joined by my brother when he returns from his travels later, are going out for something to eat to celebrate the festivity that is Mother's Day. I don't get the impression that Mother's Day means a great deal to my mum, and I must confess I share her apathy. Mum and I see each other all year round, we're very close and she's a constant priority, so Mother's Day always feels a little, well, forced and pointless really.
Nonetheless, it's nothing out of the ordinary for me to meet up with la famille on a weekend anyway, and it's always better when we can all meet up at the same time.
Interestingly though, a quick search on Wikipedia tells me that most countries in the world celebrate Mother's Day, scattered throughout the year. Wikipedia reports the history of Mother's Day in the UK as follows:
"Mothering Sunday, commonly called "Mothers' Day" in the United Kingdom, has no direct connection to the American practice. It falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent (exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday). It is believed to have originated from the 16th Century Christian practice of visiting one's mother church annually, which meant that most mothers would be reunited with their children on this day. Most historians believe that young apprentices and young women in servitude were released by their masters that weekend in order to visit their families.[2] As a result of secularization, it is now principally used to celebrate and give thanks for mothers, although it is still recognized in church, with attention paid to Mary the mother of Jesus as well as the traditional concept 'mother church'."
Motherhood is particularly interesting to me at the moment as one of my best friends, Shon, is pregnant (you did say tell everyone, didn't you Dill?). This is something that, until it happened, I thought would never happen to any of the women I know. For it to happen to Shonagh just makes me feel a million times fiercer about her than I usually do, which can be no bad thing.
Most of my other closest female friends, with the exception of a couple, a quite commitedly childless and intend to be child-free, myself included. The child-free movement is, according to some a growing movement, or to others, one that is suddenly finding itself under the spotlight.
In a recent edition of Bitch, the childfree movement was examined in a lengthy feature and in a recent issue of Mslexia a reader wrote a letter complaining that the childfree movement consistently refer to children using negative terms such as "Crotch-droppings", a phrase which had me in giggles every time I saw a toddler for weeks.
What do you mean I've got no maternal instinct!?
Most of my other closest female friends, with the exception of a couple, a quite commitedly childless and intend to be child-free, myself included. The child-free movement is, according to some a growing movement, or to others, one that is suddenly finding itself under the spotlight.
In a recent edition of Bitch, the childfree movement was examined in a lengthy feature and in a recent issue of Mslexia a reader wrote a letter complaining that the childfree movement consistently refer to children using negative terms such as "Crotch-droppings", a phrase which had me in giggles every time I saw a toddler for weeks.
What do you mean I've got no maternal instinct!?
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