My Mum
The following maudlin post brought on by impending motherhood hormones….
This post is a tribute to my most avid and critical reader - critical in either sense of the word. At the moment she is at work while some of her students sit their Schol (Trinity’s Scholarship) Exams, so that she can get down to correcting them as soon as they have finished so that they are all done by this evening in case her first grand-child decides to turn up early. My parents live in Dublin, in Ireland and my mother hates flying - growing up hearing flying stories told by her father’s USAF colleagues will do that to you - so they will be taking the ferry and driving across from Holyhead. Although in this instance its my dad I feel sorry for as he will have to do the driving.
My mum has had a huge impact on me. I can blame her for my need to have books - bookcases optional - in pretty much every room of my house. Thankfully my husband is an avid reader as well. Her music tastes have rubbed of on me, but then again my father is so amazingly tone-deaf there was no one else who was going to influence that. And she is the reason why I am so addicted to crafts.
Besides doing embroidery my mother quilts like I bead. Its compulsive, she buys fabric like I buy beads. I think there are plenty of crack dealers who chould realise that its probably much safer and profitable to switch to supplying sewing and beading supplies to middle-aged women.
I grew up in a house that had a sign in the kitchen that said:
She who dies with the most fabric wins.
I think my mother is out near the head of the pack, if not leading it. I’m getting there with the beads -my husband would probably say that I won a long time ago.
Also for someone who has now lived in Ireland for longer than she did in the US and wouldn’t go back for anything, she seems to be currently doing her best to revive the flagging economy. Every evening when I chat to her on the phone, about what the baby’s been up to, whether I’ve blogged, what beady/crochet/knitting I’ve done she is generally online at the same time looking at or ordering fabric! And she hand sews everything!
My old bedroom which was refurbished just before I left home - they knocked the two back bedrooms together and put in custom storage, is now a treasure trove of fabric and craft books ranging from embroidering miniature soft furnishings to Russian embroidery, Kaffe Fasset Needlework books and home and craft books from the 30’s and 40’s. (She also helps with an annual second hand book sale). I wonder if she was pleased a bit when I left home(finally at the age of 22, I lived at home though uni) because it gave her more room for books and fabric 
But she does admit to missing the fun of a new parcel of beads arriving and taking over the dining-room table.
So here’s to my mum, and I hope that Amelia will turn up soon so I can see her all the sooner.