My mother bought me a pantie girdle when I was eight, MI.
I rang her this evening to say, happy mother's day. She said:
"Oh I went out yesterday with Diana, and we waited in until the post had come but there was no card from you, so Diana said, what will you do if the flowers come when we're out? And I said, oh not to worry, they'll put them in the back porch like they always do. We got back from Reading and Di came in for a cup of tea and there were no flowers, and she said, oh I feel really sorry for you, mother's day and no card and no flowers, how sad."
So I said, I asked for the flowers to be delivered today, on Mothering Sunday (through gritted teeth), and she said, oh yes, they arrived this morning, but they're horrible, what possessed you to order purple flowers, you know I only like pink flowers, and they're all purple. So I told her what she should have got - all pink, with purple lisianthus, but apparently it was all purple, even the roses, and the lisianthus are drooping already. But never mind, I suppose it's the thought that counts. And Diana had felt so sorry for her having no flowers yesterday that she had dashed to Waitrose and had come back with a lovely pink and white bouquet.
And now she has so many flowers it looks like a funeral parlour. It was on the tip of my tongue to say "if only." And Di said to me last time I saw her "I feel I have to keep coming to see your mother, as she has fallen out with everyone else, and if I don't come, I don't think she'd really see anyone."