Nanny May's Teacup Blog Post #3

It's Mother's Day in the UK today, March 14th 2021.

Being in lockdown we're unable to hug our mums and give them a kiss on the cheek.

So a card, message, gift or a chat on the phone will have to suffice this year.

Whilst searching for my teacup to have my morning cuppa, I spot the mug my children bought me a few years back for Mother's Day.

I have drank from it several times whilst affectionately thinking of the children when on past Mother's Days they have tiptoed into the bedroom holding their treasure for mummy, a card they have created at school gingerly waking me up after my lie-in, then kissing me gently on the cheek.

My eldest remarked that I didn't drink tea from it much, and sounded a little hurt.

I explained that I like to drink from a smaller cup, a preference I had picked up from my own mom, she in turn had picked it up from her own Mom, my Nanny May.

Woe betide anyone who offered my Nan a brew in a mug.

"I aint drinking out of that piss pot" she would retort, arms folded, whilst shutting her eyes and turning her head.

She was a tiny woman with a huge character 

The Matriarch of our large family.

She commanded respect, and she got it. 

A generous, loving and funny woman, whose strength has always and still does amaze and inspire me.

She had fifteen children, including three sets of twins a legacy which was passed onto me, "Blame my Aunt, she was the first to have twins" she laughed.

It's a legacy I was proud to carry on.

Here she is with my twin boys when they were just a few months old.

 So when I first moved out with my now Husband into a small flat above a shop I went in search of a special teacup for when she visited.

I headed straight to John Lewis in Solihull, not a place I would normally have gone to buy cups, Woolworths would have been my usual place to shop for household items.

But this was for Nanny May, the head of our family, our Queen,and I didn't mind spending an extra few pounds on a teacup she would be happy to drink from.

And it felt like the Queen was coming to visit that day in our new flat.

I made her a cup of tea in the new teacup and gingerly carried it over to my Nan hoping she would be suitably impressed, just as the kids do now when they bring their handmade cards up to me on Mother's Day morning, waiting for the acknowledgement they will always receive from me, a kiss, a hug and a huge thank you.

I watched, holding my breath as Nanny May held her cup and took that first sip. If it wasn't up to her standards she'ld let me know, no doubt about it.

But she carried on drinking her tea.

I breathed.

That was enough for me.

I spent the rest of the day proud as punch.

And whenever Nanny May came to visit she would always be served a cuppa in her teacup, specially chosen just for her and lovingly looked after.

Even all these years after she has sadly left us, it's still here, a reminder of Nan and the day Our Queen came to visit. 

And now it's Mom who demands a teacup when she visits again "I don't want it in a piss pot"  she'll call to me as I put the kettle on.

Happy Mother's Day to my mom aka Nanny Sandra and my mother-in-law aka Granny Pam.