Mothering Sundays Past

As another Mothering Sunday rolls by, I feel a sadness that 

my Mum is not here to buy a card or a present for or to spend time with.

I think of past Mothering Sundays ..... from the simple church services we attended with our mum when we were small, with the small bunches of flowers tied with ribbons, laid out on the pews......to the later tea parties at each others houses, toasting fruit bread in front of the log fire.....

......and special cakes made by one or other of us......walks in anemone filled woods......

 to the gift-giving and making our Mum feel special. 

She was.

As mentioned in previous posts.....
http://freshwindsgarden.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/my-granny-magan.html
..... I learnt a lot of my crafts from her....sewing, knitting and embroidery. We also shared a great love of gardening. Interestingly, Mum`s love of gardening began when my Dad died and she took it over. Up til then it was his department. That`s just how it was.

Mum indoors cooking dinner and Dad in the garden planting and growing.

And she became a very good gardener.
We shared a love of growing things from seed and got a great deal of pleasure from inspecting each other`s successes and failures in the greenhouses. Every school holiday would find me spending at least one day with Mum in her garden doing all sorts, from pruning the huge Bramley apple, to clearing over-grown beds and planting up containers.

 Mum`s love of everything outdoors began as a child but continued when she signed up for the Land Army two years under age, fibbing to get in. It wasn`t until she was due for a wage rise that she was found out. I think this was quite daring of her. It shows her determination.
Whilst a Land Girl, she did all sorts from picking sprouts, hoeing, picking sugarbeet, to threshing, driving tractors and working alongside very good friends who stayed in contact for the rest of their lives.
This is a great book by a local author, Ann Kramer about the Land Army...
"Land Girls and their Impact"
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Land-Girls-Their-Impact-Kramer/dp/1844680916
My sisters, brother and I were interviewed by Ann whilst she was researching the book and there are several contributions from Mum`s memories.

When she married Dad, it was his dream to have a smallholding and no doubt Mum would have helped. This did not come about, but Mum continued to work the land by working at different farms doing seasonal work. As children we did all kinds of work with her......
raspberry picking, apple picking, hop picking, blackcurrant picking, pea picking, potato picking.
Oh what memories that conjures up......( a blog entry in it`s own right)
This is how we earnt our holiday money.
Mum was also involved in hop training, apple pruning and apple packing.
She loved being outdoors and some of the work was very hard. When I think of the huge ladders they carried round (and climbed).....it would never be allowed these days.

But her speciality was the growing of sweetpeas, and my abiding memory is the living room at home, suffused with the heady perfume of dozens of vases of them, usually arrayed in their separate colours.

 I was going to call this blog entry "My Mum" but I realise that I could write a book
(and probably will) so I`m renaming it.
It`s just the tip of the iceberg.