MY sister and I frequently laugh about The Mother’s unerring ability to turn the spotlight onto herself no matter what is happening. Frankly if she had ever chosen a career on stage she would be the fourth spear carrier from the left whose upstage antics could easily steal the limelight from Dame Judi at the height of her powers.

She’s particularly adept at this during phone calls. A typical exchange between us goes:

Me / My sister (the characters are interchangeable) : Hi Mam

The Mother: Hello darling…I’m knackered.

Me / My sister: Oh dear what….?

The Mother: What haven’t I been doing is more like it. I’ve cleaned the house, been out for coffee, tested the pool, deadheaded the roses, baked a cake and brought about world peace… (Ok, the last bit is an exaggeration but only because she hasn’t turned her complete attention to the issue).

Me / My sister: Well I’ve…

The Mother: And then when I did all that I was exhausted and I thought ‘I can’t do anything else today’ so I popped over to see your auntie who thinks you’ve got a sunny disposition and we’ve decided we can’t go out to lunch next week because she’s having a new cooker fitted so we’re going to leave it until after your cousin has been home…

Me / My sister: Why can’t you go out just because she’s having a new cooker?

The Mother: …and then when I got back I thought I might as well quickly polish the car because there was a little mark on the bonnet so that’s why I’m knackered…and I haven’t had my tea yet so I’m going to go and cook that now. Have you had a busy day?

Me / My Sister: Yes actually…I….

The Mother: Well go and have a nice sit down and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

The final lines of our side of the conversation are usually delivered to silence as The Mother bounds on to her next task.

This weekend during a visit to celebrate the housemate’s granddaughter’s 14th birthday the subject turned to exams as her grandson bemoaned the fact he’d missed out on a top grade in his biology exam by a single mark…with the culprit being a question he was convinced he’d got right.

Producing the paper for us to look at I nodded my head in agreement believing the marker had been overly exacting.

“Let me have a look,” said the ex-teacher Mother. After several moments of studying the paper she looked up.

“I think I’ve got oxygen deprivation,” she announced.

“What?” I asked fearing she was unwell.

“The symptoms are all here in this question,” she replied waving the paper. “I get muscles aches and I get tired.”

“She’s done it again,” I said to my sister as we drove home. “Not many people can make a GCSE biology mock all about them…but The Mother can!”

“I don’t do that. I simply pointed out that I have muscle ache…but it mainly comes from the shoulder I hurt when I fell down in the garden….” came a voice from the back of the car as we settled in for a ten minute rant and rolled our eyes in loving acceptance.