My 3 Mothers and a Bonus Royal Mother in LOH 185

My 3 Mothers and a Bonus Royal Mother

Hello Hello to all you wonderful Ladies and other Hivians.

I feel like I am intruding and it feels so wrong, however I have been assured I am allowed to post this for the dreemport collaboration month.

This then is a post for Ladies of Hive Community Contest #185

specially in response to question number 3....

3️⃣ Is there a special recipe or tradition that is associated with your mom (or mom figure) that you would love to share with us?

Why 3?

Why not!

I was fortunate enough to know my mother, my grandmother and my granny. Hence the 3 mothers in the title ... I will let you guess if you can who the Royal Mother is...

So here we have it sounds like an edition of threetunetuesday except it would be threemotherthursday!

Why am I included my two grandmothers... Yes why not.

Do you know why? I was thinking that I really should enter a post for this challenge and thought if there was a way to include my parent's mothers that would be all cool.

Sadly all these figures have passed away and it came to me today that I have never written about either grandmother and rarely do I write about my mother.

How much I will today we shall see...

1 The Granny (think grumpy Matilda!)

My father lost his father when he was a nipper so I never knew my paternal grandfather but I knew my paternal grandmother. I called her granny ... Yes she looked Matilda the NFT character I created (if you know me you will know I don't really do fiction I do faction which is a blend of fact and fiction and yes Matilda the character is based on my granny, including the gin habit, although Matilda does not appear to smoke.

We lived in Edinburgh as did granny. However my parents moved away when I was 11 and I went to the same school in Edinburgh but as a boarder. I would fly home during school holidays.

My associated traditions of granny.
Every other Wednesday I would catch the number 23 bus to Morningside in Edinburgh (Morningside was a well to do area in Edinburgh where JK Rowling lived). When I got there granny would open up her purse and get me some coins. I would then have to walk to the newsagent who would take the money and count out some Benson & Hedges cigarettes and give them to me to give to her. No proof of age in those days 🤣

Dinner would always be Finnan Haddock. This was then cooked in milk which would turn yellow, it was served with mashed potatoes and peas.

After being shown how to make it twice, it was my turn to cook. This then became a tradition and I would end up buying it from the fishmonger after I got off the bus on the way to her 1 bedroomed flat.

Wee Edward the culinary masterchef at age 11, I would not do the cigarette drooping from mouth in the kitchen just yet! She passed away from lung cancer when I was 14.

2 The Grandmother (think smaller but posher Matilda)

My mother's parents were Fifers and live in the county that I live in now. When I was at boarding school I would catch the train from Edinburgh to Kirkcaldy and spend a weekend with them every so often.

They live in Elie and had a big house and huge garden, my grandmother was a bank managers wife and as such di not work. My grandfather was huge in the freemasons and was the treasurer of the Scottish freemasons for years. His funeral was like a celebrity funeral, people came from all over the UK and it was massive. I digress.

Grandmother was grandma, under no circumstances am I ever to be called granny she would say with her eyebrow arched. I was bigger than her when I was about 8 so she would always be looking down on you.

I remember her driving an old Rover car and she had to sit on a great big pillow on the seat just to see over the steering wheel and out the fluffing window!

Our tradition though was that she would pick me up at the train station and we would drive to St Andrews. We would then go to a restaurant for high tea. She had five grandsons but I was her favourite. When I went with her for high tea, she would get instant service from the young waitresses if I was there she would say.

We would always have a scone with clotted cream and raspberry jam. I mentioned she had a big garden, well she grew strawberries raspberries gooseberries and all kinds of veg.

She would make jams and I would help, raspberries became my favourite and to this day if I can grab a high tea with a scone clotted cream and raspberry jam then I will.

She was an awesome cook, so our weekends would often be focused on cooking and gardening.

3 The Mother The Mum The Mummy

I never called my mother mummy oh fluff no! Mother in various tones or Mum.

She was a quiet and determined lady, yet always cheery positive and down to earth. I take alot of my positive habits from her.

I realised I am over a thousand words already, so I shall not say too much.

Seeing we are talking about Edinburgh and school I remember one of the if not THE most embarrassing moments in my life.

Age ten and still in Primary school we had a trip to go on with the senior school. So mother dropped me off at the big school. Little Edward got his bag out the boot and mumbled bye mum see you in a week.

Imagine the fluffing horror when ten minutes later we are all in the school yard, probably a couple of hundred boys in ages ranging from 10 to 18, I was about the youngest of the lot, and the horror is still at me as I have not said what happened yet .... Ten minutes later in comes a yellow mini in through the gates.

Oh fluff little Edward does not want to think what is happening.

Car comes to a halt. Car door opens, Edward Edward you have forgotten your Wellies.

Oh fluff me, I was mortified, everyone was cheering Edward Edward and holding up their hands to impersonate the Wellie boots!

Boy oh boy I did not let her live that down. But many a time we can laugh about it.

Which leads me nicely to one of her sayings that resonates to this day... no matter how crappy you think your day or your life is, there is always someone somewhere who is worse off than you, so be thankful and don't waste your day.

Our Bonus ~ We finish with the Royal Mother.

I met her with a bloodied thumb and sang at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh in front of her.

I am a royalist and so of course it was Queen Elizabeth II

The tradition well I am not sure it is a tradition but it is something I associate with her.

I was smoking on the 8th September 2022 when I heard on the radio she had passed away. Shocked on hearing the news, the cigarette fell from my lips and I never lit another one. This was me after smoking over a pack of cigarettes for many many years. Cold turkey it is the only way to quit something imho.

I hope that this is acceptable in the Ladies of Hive community.

I know it would tickle my grandma. She was a big player in ladies gold and ladies bowling. In those days they even had their own rooms in those clubs!

I wish that you all have a brilliant rest of your week, and until we meet again enjoy Hiving.

All ramblings are from me, the mad Scotsman TengoLoTodo unless otherwise stated. Lead image is AI generated from my prompt in pixlr.com Matilda NFT screencard from my #craftink collection.

DO WHAT YOU LOVE AND DO IT OFTEN

Haste Ye Back!

@tengolotodo May 16th 2024