Celebrating "Mothering Day"

While we were in London this last week we saw two wonderful examples of the challenges of the English language - and these from the very people who invented it! I am starting with these because of the title of this post which I will get back to shortly :) ... first, we were making our way through Friday afternoon London traffic on the National Express bus back to Norwich. Approaching a roundabout we noticed a small red commuter bus with large white lettering on the side advertising DIAL-A-BUS 1800 ####  ... the bus was hitched to a tow truck! I did not have the camera handy so you will need to use your imagination to apply the description to this image from Google:

Imagine ... smaller white tow truck and the bus being red ...

For the second example I did have the camera. 

This was in the foyer of the Tate Britain Gallery and the picture is clearer than my words :) ...

And so you are thinking what has this to do with the title of this post? 

Just the English language. Last Sunday the English celebrated what we call Mother's Day. They call it Mothering Day. I am no linguist but it does seem quaint and certainly in my experience an apt description of what we actually celebrae on Mother's Day ... not to mention an apt description of what mothers most enjoy doing ... and doing ... "mothering" just to be very clear ... at which point I best move on (see me dressed for warmth trudging around London with our luggage ... just kidding, of course ... as you will see in the next post I was much better dressed)!

We had a really nice pub roast dinner at the Lord Roseberry. Belinda & George, his sister Martha, best mate Dan and his fiance Kate, along with George's mum & dad Sean and Ruth were there. This was the end of big couple of days for the ladies as Belinda had her Baby Shower the day before - cannot tell you anything of that secret women's business. The boys pieced together a PVC "lego" style shed for George which remains standing :).

Mothering lunch at the Lord Roseberry

Belinda being "showered"

Several conversations over the weekend discussed what we might be doing for the upcoming week. The standard response was "nothing planned, depends on how Belinda is progressing and George's time away with work". We began to realise the "urgency" of people asking was based on the more common shorter visits and holidays and the urgency to get around and do and see things ... our time frame is much more generous and flexible, which actually takes some explaining for people to appreciate. 

We contemplated a few days heading west in northern Wales or north west in the Peak District and also checked out the availability of times to use our voucher for afternoon tea at the Ritz. There was a rare 3.30pm time slot available on Thursday! I say "rare" because the slots are every 2 hours from 11.30am to 7.30pm and the calendar shows the 3.30 slot most popular. Accommodation was secured nearby, a suitable bus timetable found and we headed off to London to "pretend posh" at the Ritz! So we dedicate the next post to that part of the week :) ... and Craig ... yes, I was thinking about your farewell next week and really wished you were here!

The Palm Court at the Ritz