This is a Mother’s Day dedication, written and posted a little early as I’ll be travelling from the 17th March and may not have internet access for a few days. I have so many stories to tell about mum that I find it difficult to choose what to say and so this is just a random selection plucked from my memory and in no particular order of priority…

Mum has always been a great story teller and able to “hold court” (well she IS a queen). Her stories are told with full sound effects, enthusiastic facial expressions, generous amounts of laughter (sometimes tears) and vigorous Mediterranean gesticulations. I have never known an old lady tell such filthy jokes and then laugh raucously at them (jokes so rude that I dare not repeat or print them here). She actually has three jokes in her repertoire and over the years we’ve heard them many times… with the punch lines generally accompanied by table or thigh slapping and tears of laughter. I sigh when I think that mum is a shadow of the woman she used to be – not too many jokes now I’m afraid but her sense of humour still surfaces from time to time…

… like the time last year when I gave her a tiny toy bear seated on a wicker chair. It’s an ornament that amused her before she moved to the old people’s home and I’d kept it as a memento when Liz and I cleared out her home. It occurred to me that she might like to have it back and although she couldn’t remember it (or who had given it to her) she took a liking to it (again!) and instructed me to place it by the TV (exactly where she had put it before). The novelty of the bear has worn off now but in the beginning she kept talking to it and laughing at it and on one occasion, when a domestic assistant asked mum if she’d like a coffee she replied “Ask the bear!” – to which both mum and the assistant fell about laughing! That was only 5 months ago and since then her humour has buried itself a little deeper in her psyche.

There’s a large photo of my dad on mum’s wall and mum sometimes talks to it/him. When mum told me recently that she had asked my father if he liked her hair, I was curious to know how he'd responded, so I asked her… “He just laughed” she said, laughing. I think mum was winding me up – further evidence that there are at least a few marbles clanking around in there.

Mum’s stories are often about her time in Cyprus, before she and my father emigrated to England for a “better life”. One of her favourites was the tale of how she and my father met. Apparently they were both at a wedding; mum saw my father, handsome as he was, dancing and jumping round like a gazelle. He captured her heart and she turned to her friend to ask “Who is that handsome boy dancing there?” To which her friend replied “You mean you don’t know? That’s John the tailor – everyone knows he is the most handsome boy in Kormakiti!” Later on, my mother was dancing with the girls (they do this demure dance waving a handkerchief) and as my father saw her his heart was captivated so he turned to his friend and asked “Hey, best man, who is that beautiful girl dancing there?” To which his friend replied “Hey, best man, you mean you don’t know? That’s Nina, the daughter of Frangos – everyone knows she is the most beautiful girl in Agia Marina!”… The rest, as they say, is history.

So on this Mother’s Day, mum, I’m sending my best love for you, your memories and your stories – God broke the mould after he created you; you’re definitely one in a million!