March 2025

********Mother’s Day Post- pleaae skip on if you would rather not read.**********

So hear me out on this- would you be pleased if your Mother’s Day gift consisted of a soft toy and a box of Miniature Heroes? Because, and forgive me if I’m wrong, is this not a more appropriate present for a child? How many mums do you know who would appreciate the like of this? Who on earth would actually say: ‘That’s exactly what my life has been missing! A pastel pink boom box cuddly toy with blue hearts and teeny tiny legs!’ Readers, let me reassure you that I’m not in the grip of some menopause induced stupor, but I saw such an item in a well-known service station on the Saintfield Road.

Have you ever seen such a pile of crap?

There’s no accounting for taaste, but while I’ve no issue with chowing down a few Cadbury’s Dairy Milks, I’m wreacking my head to come up with a single person I know, who would want to add to the mountain of kid’s stuff they’ve already accumuated. And I’ll tell you this for nothing, I’d be bloody livid if I was handed this next Sunday. It’s unthinkable. ‘Hi Mum, as a big thank you for the trauma of having us plucked from your womb, here’s a floppy-eared elephant fron Sainsbury’s.’

Observe the dark circles under the eyes. I blame the decluttering.

Maybe I’m touchier than ususal on said matters because I’ve recently instigated a clear out, and quelle surprise, I’m the main one  doing the clearing. Let’s be clear: I’m not trying to rob my offspring of all their worldly goods, but we’re being buried alive under all manner of shite and it’s destroying my happiness. So I took action, and lobbed a few soft toys into the machine and hung them out by their ears or arms in the winter sunshine. The Small Child, (or our very own Lord Sugar) got busy on Vinted, but it her Sour Wee Mother who packaged up two neon coloured sloths and a ‘Spring Bundle’ ( two lambs and a rabbit) for which we were offered a paltry sum.

Take them to Oxfam! I hear you cry, but very few charity shops actually accept teddies, so they mostly end up in landfill; the thought of which makes me go a bit funny.

What I’m saying therefore, is that toys are work. Anything, in fact that comes into your house, is work, that primarily the women have to deal with. Items have to stored, cleaned, and prised from the mouths of family pets with a strange proclivity for chewing off their eyes and noses.

I’m suggesting that mums deserve more than being gifted this sort of nonsense. So here’s a handy guide to what I think counts as a present:

Looking something thoughtful and sustainable? A charity shop may have the answer. Who wouldn’t appreciate a vase filled with hand-picked flowers a well-chosen book and maybe a bag of good coffee to go with it?

Feeling harried and put-upon? (Me- almost always) then a relaxing experience is what you need. Close to my heart in Belfast are Betty (Betty’s Place, on University Street) or  Geraldine Boyd who operates out of her snug and perfect ‘cocoon’ in Rosetta. Both use their intuition to tap in to where you need it most. A reflexology session or massage are two gifts in one- time away from frenetic family life, plus the benefits of something restorative.

No time or funds for any of the above? Maybe then on Mother’s Day, mum has dinner made for her. And, I mean deciding on, shopping for, cooking and cleaning up after the meal: the full hog.

In our house we don’t go big on these occasions. Case in point, last June LSB spent Father’s Day screwing on a new Toilet seat he bought in Homebase. And on Mother’s Day 2020, I trailed him to a random house off the M2 and we ended up coming home with a greyhound. ‘It’s entirely my project,’ I told him. It didn’t work out like that though; in fact he’s out walking his project now. But it was unintentionally the best present ever. And beats a toy boom box anyday. She’d only try and eat it.

Final day when sun has appeared. Finally. Like, ‘here’s the holiday you could have won.

‘Has your last holiday been an utter shit-show? Don’t worry, it could be worse. Make yourself feel better here, with SWB’s Guide to making your first ski-trip as stressful as humanly possible…

One– work your ass up to the last possible minute at work, filing reports until that final bell rings and you are spat back out into the community with your brain turned to mush and with spanking new crow’s feet round your eyes from squinting at Excel spreadsheets.

Two– Rock up at airport nervous and jittery, convinced that you’ve forgotton something essential. Meet new friends ‘Orlagh and Ronan’ at the bar and chug down a glass of Marlborough Sauvignon while you chunter on about your worst fears of coming a cropper on the slopes. Shudder as Ronan regales you with tales of going off-piste with zero-visibility and narrowly avoiding death by skiing off the side of a ledge with a 600ft drop in. Easily done, apparently. Eek. Swiftly knock back another glass of Sauvignon.

Three– Snooze on plane and arrive in Geneva with optimism restored. Marvel at its short-termed nature when there is no evidence of the expensive private transfer you have booked.  After retrieving your luggage, run gormlessly around the terminal, sweating like a bastard inside your borrowed ski coat, while you try to locate him.

Four– Arrive late to your hotel, where you lash another glass of wine into you, while slurping up a pasta dish so swimming in butter and pecorino cheese that you wake up (and consequently wake the rest of your family up) at three am evacuating your bowels in a hotel bathroom with poor ventilation and horrifying acoustics.

Five– Omit to check how far away your hotel actually is from ski-hire shop and the cable car where you are to meet up for your group lesson at 9am. Huff and puff your way to said shop to be kitted out by the slowest man in history.

Six– Discover that ski boots are the footwear from hell, explicitly designed to make your feet go into agonising spasms by halting the blood flow at the ankle.

Seven– Walk another two kilometres in aforementioned items of torture, carrying heavy skis along a narrow footpath while the buses, for which you haven’t purchased a ticket, trundle past. Phone the ski-school en route, and try not to vomit when they deny all knowledge of your booking, despite having fleeced you eight hundred quid for the week.

Eight– Locate cable car staion with joyful relief, and hop on, hoping for a miracle at the top. Receive call from school who have located your booking and provide directions on where to meet your group. Exhale. Make your way over to the meeting point, where none of the instructors will have a clue who you are, or give two hoots. With no previous experience, attempt to descend a nursery slope on your own, taking reassurance from that fact that children as young as toddlers are managing it with some prowess. Take off at terrific speed, while shrieking, ‘OH FUCK, OH FUCK, PUTAIN DE MERDE,’ so that said toddlers can hear you scream bloody murder in both English and French.

Nine– Admit defeat, retreat to cable car and descend. Mop up salty tears of rage, fear and frustration and blame husband for everything going to shit, even though it was you who booked it all. Realise that the ski-school is right at the bottom and go in. Observe the chaos and realize that it’s just EXTREMELY busy and that with a million others, your small family of first-time skiers have just fallen (mercifully not literally) through the cracks that morning. Munch pommes frites and mayonaise prior to afternoon lesson to self-soothe. Cry again when this attempt fails spectacularly and sends you scarpering into the small establishment’s single toilet, where you commit a crime against public restrooms and hope to God that no one at the little bar recognises you tomorrow.

Ten– Return to nursery slopes with instructor, and remain on said slopes for the next three days running because you are filled with terror. Ponder if you have a hitherto undiagnosed condition that impairs the transfer of any messages from the brain to the legs, which splay at odd angles akin to someone having a cerebral episode.

Eleven– On day four, move to a green slope in the middle of a blizzard. Prove incapable of gaining any purchase on this slightly greater incline, and clatter down multiple times, having forgotten anything gleaned previously. Cry, and then plead with your instructor that you want to go back to the nursery slope again, while your children look on, appalled.

Blizzard

Twelve– Award Brownie points to yourself for the following-

• Not stabbing an Australian woman in the eye with a fork who boasts about her five-year-old mastering a challenging blue route and telling you to book yourself and your husband into private lessons ‘which would only cost £250 for the morning.’
• Not throttling a Scottish man who laughed uproariously when he asked (and you stupidly told him) what you paid for your holiday.
• Using all your yogic skills to draw in deep, deep breaths when an English fella in a restaurant holds court at his table and tells his friends that really, Trump ‘isn’t all that bad,’ and that ultimately, ‘his transactional method of doing politics will work out in the long-run.’ Tool.

Attempt at ‘jolly family photo.’ Observe tight, forced smile.

Take aways-

On reflection, Australian woman may have been correct and a couple of private lessons wouldn’t have gone amiss, especially given my nervous disposition.

If doing this again, at a different resort, plan to arrive at a sensible hour the day before to arrange ski hire etc, to avoid the shambolic start. Accept that learning to ski at 46 years of age is really just an exercise in humility. Give thanks that everyone arrives home with little damaged only pride, and rejoice that you took the children when they are young and have no fear, enabling them, hopefully, not to look like a pair of total bollocks when they fall on their arses with all the grace and dexterity of a hippo on a unicycle.