Maudlin Monday!

Do you ever get days where you feel a little maudlin? The dictionary definition is as follows; weakly or tearfully sentimental, esp. from drunkeness (French 'Madeleine' referring to pictures of Mary Magdalen weeping)

Now, I am not drunk, and certainly nowhere near being weak and tearful, but yesterday would have been my mum's 100th birthday and we used to tease her about getting a telegram from the Queen. (Does she still send them I wonder?) That got me thinking about my childhood and this morning while I was doing some dusting, (yes), I happened to dust the beautiful glass biscuit barrel that used to stand on the sideboard next to the phone when I was growing up. I used to try and sneak a biscuit (or two) when mum was out of the room, but no matter where she was, she would hear me! I could never get the lid on or off without it making the tiniest tinkle against the side and then I would hear 'I can hear you!' from mum! Even if she was upstairs with the Hoover! Again this morning I tried to lift the lid quietly and again it tinkled and I bet that mum heard me and frowned!

The empty biscuit barrel!

May was a month of birthdays, mum, dad and I celebrated in May, while my sister had to wait until November for her birthday. I still remember being quite excited on mum's birthday in 1955 because we could say 'five-five-fifty-five'. She never believed that she would see the turn of the century, saying that she would be long gone by then, but she did, and died just after her ninety-fourth birthday. Although we never celebrated Mother's Day (and still don't!), I remember going to the local Brentham Club and dancing round the Maypole on May Day! I was never very good though and kept getting my ribbon muddled when I turned the wrong way!

I'm the tall skinny one, my friend is Lorna. In our May Day finery!

She loved Catherine and Andrew and would have been so proud of them if she could see them now, and I wish that she had known her great-grandchildren, I know she would have loved them. She always maintained that being a granny was the most wonderful thing in the world, in her words, 'I can spoil them and then hand them back to you!'

Mum and dad in 1969.

I'm a granny now, I think I'll follow her advice!