A little piece of happy for my mum

One of the biggest differences between the baby days this time around compared to four years ago, is that I see more of my mum now. When I had Frog I lived further away from my parents, plus my mum was still working full time as a teacher. Fast-forward four years and my parents have retired to North Devon, while we relocated to South Devon 18 months ago. It means my mum and dad have more time and we’re now only an hour away from each other compared to the four hours of a couple of years ago.

My mum doesn’t really go in for the whole Mother’s Day thing, but I always try to send her a card anyway. This year though, I was able to gift her with a beautiful bouquet of Mother’s Day flowers from Appleyard London.

Here is why my mum deserves the flowers:

1. She comes over to our house once a fortnight and brings a home-cooked meal, cake and ingredients for a pudding. She then sets to work cleaning and helping me with the ever-increasing laundry pile, before holding the baby so I can get some work done. She picks up my four year old from school and plays with her until bedtime, and then helps out with bedtime before staying over, so she can do the school run the following morning.

2. The week after I had Baby Girl, my mum stayed with us and basically fed us and kept the house from falling apart. She even swapped with the (self-proclaimed) Northern Love Machine some nights and helped me do the savage night shift, rocking and soothing my newborn at 3am so we could get some sleep.

3. My mum is funny – really, really funny and also great fun. She used to be a drama teacher, so has a whole plethora of games up her sleeve which my four year old finds HILARIOUS. I regularly find my mum and older daughter engrossed in some kind of imaginary game and, when we go to the park, kids seem to be drawn to her – I swear she has some kind of magnetic “fun quality” that young children can sniff out.

4. She’s really easy to talk to. I feel I can tell her pretty much anything and have always felt this way. I suppose because she was a secondary school teacher she was adept at dealing with angsty teenagers, which was helpful seeing as I was… angsty.

5. My mum is very talented with a needle and thread. So talented, in fact, that she made my wedding dress and, every Christmas, she makes an outfit for my daughter to wear. This year she made her an Elsa dress, plus a matching mini Elsa dress for the baby!

I could write at least an extra thousand words on reasons my mum is great, but then she’d really kill me. Anyway, one of my mum’s favourite things is being outside in her big garden, amongst her flowers. My parents’ place came with an overgrown paddock which my mum and dad have worked tirelessly to transform into the most beautiful vegetable and fruit garden. It’s fair to say gardening and flowers are my mum’s thing.

The flower delivery arrived when my mum was with us at home. Ironically, she was cleaning and came through into the living room to see what had arrived at the front door, while still wearing a pair of rubber gloves. The flowers were safely wrapped in plastic air wrap, kept upright in water inside a cardboard box.

I chose the Lilac Blossom bouquet, which comes complete with Lilac and Memory Lane Roses. It. Was. Beautiful.

It was a lovely way to show my mum just a tiny slice of gratitude at all the help she’s given us these past few months. So, thank you Appleyard London.

And thank you Mum.

 

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Disclosure: Many thanks to Appleyard London for sending my mum these beautiful flowers. If you want to order your own you can use the discount code BLOG40 to get 40% off the luxury bouquets (excluding the flowers by post range). Appleyard London also offer a range of Next Day Flowers – click on the link to find out more.

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