The snowdrops are up, the Valentines hurly-burly has passed, and just when you think you should be enjoying a hot cross bun by now—rocks ahead. It’s Mother’s Day. A lower-rent holiday than Christmas, of course, or a birthday, but that means you are more likely, in my experience, to forget it’s there and trip over it. Here are a few ideas skewed towards mothers without a great yen for the hidebound classics, like jewellery, for instance, or long-stemmed roses. Mothers who are A Bother to buy things for in other words (sorry about us).
1. Potted spring flowers from Sarah Raven
Every year, I want to put spring-blooming flowers into pots. I see people on Instagram tucking bulbs into repurposed antique basins, covering them with soil and blankets of ornamental moss, and I know The Time Has Come. I do know. And yet. My friend Butter Wakefield, who designs some of the most bucolic gardens in Britain, put me onto the Sarah Raven website a few years ago. Sarah has pre-tucked bulbs into workaday pots that are nice enough to keep, sold for less than the cost of a bouquet. I prefer potted flowers to bouquets in any case, but in the spring, when you can watch the narcissi come up with an obscure sense that you contributed somehow, they can’t be topped.
2. TOAST A Line Cotton Linen Canvas Coat
I was walking down the King’s Road in January, blinking through sleet, when I noticed this oversized, breezy green coat in the TOAST shop window. It suggested springtime, and bare wrists, and maybe gardening in a floppy hat. I felt, suddenly, that a modern day Clarissa Dalloway might wear a coat like this while doing the recycling, and I tell you what, that was the beginning of the end. But it is a perfect thing. I started wearing it in February. My wrists were freezing.
3. Merry People Wellington Boots
Now and then I ask my family for A Nice Walk. It is usually in Hampstead Heath, starting at Kenwood House (more specifically at the public loos at Kenwood House, near the café with green bananas and an okay lemon slice), and we often make it past the Barbara Hepworth monolith before noticing the children at a distance, limping in rubber boots several sizes too small. Then it’s a familiar retreat to the car parked on the B519, and pots of M&S pesto pasta salad eaten in the seats. So the real gift, in this case, is the foresight to get everyone shod for the outing beforehand. I’ve had Merry People boots myself for a couple of years now, but I especially like them for kids: they have more cushion underfoot than most wellies, so they’re more comfortable for walking, and the shorter length makes them easier to get on and off.
4. Augustinus Bader The Lip Balm
Typically at some point in mid-winter, I notice that my usual beeswax lip balm, which is a few-times-a-day thing, has become a twenty-times-a-day thing. A tube of this superior balm from Augustinus Bader breaks the holding pattern. After four or five days I am back to normal balm use, even if the central heating is doing its worst and I am not helping by typing with my back on the radiator.
5. If Only If Nightgown
Soon after giving birth to my second son, Kit, a friend sent me one of these romantic, diaphanous nightgowns from If Only If. It was a rush to unwrap: traditional but alluring, like something an EM Forster heroine would wear—catnip to me in other words—but I had no idea what to do with it. It looked too pretty to become a large napkin to an infant, so I made the mistake of putting it away and not reaching for it again for a year. What a waste! The baby stuff would have washed out. Now I have two, and I wear them all the time. They get softer and softer.
6. Tickets to the National Theatre
Before we had many responsibilities, my husband and I used to line up for day-of tickets at the National. We’d bring books, snacks. We’d make friends in the queue. Now just the sight of the dun-coloured, brutalist playhouse on the other side of Waterloo Bridge makes me sentimental about obstructed view seats and a glass of Rioja at the interval. Two current shows to recommend: Dear Octopus, a revival of a nostalgic, between-the-wars play by Dodie Smith (author of I Capture the Castle), which has a take-notes-beautiful country house set, and the riveting The Motive and the Cue by Jack Thorne, which transferred to the Noël Coward Theatre in Covent Garden in December. From the end of March, The Motive and the Cue will be released in cinemas throughout the UK and beyond, and tickets are available from National Theatre Live.
7. Off-White Denim Shirt from WNU
The last time I put together a gift guide, I included the perfect blue denim shirt from WNU. I have a few of them at home: they are smartly-cut, presentable, indestructible. But such is the cult following for this shirt that often you will be out and about and notice two or three other women wearing it too. As though we all work at the same garden centre, or biodynamic dairy. Just a few weeks ago, WNU introduced an off-white version of the denim shirt, presumably to address this exact phenomenon. I have it, of course I do, and look forward to varying the uniform.
8. Oribe Shine Shampoo and Conditioner
Until recently, I used the same shampoo as my husband, and it was delivered along with the tortilla chips from Ocado. I griped about my hair looking dull to a friend who writes about beauty, and she directed me to Oribe, with a warning that the cost puts it into the realm of A Treat. Now my hair looks soft and healthy in a way that reminds me of my children’s hair, downright supple, and I don’t know what to do about it. I am constantly tuning out of conversations, mired in calculations about how to support a habit like this.
9. Babylonstoren Babel Wine
Years ago while on holiday with my husband’s family in South Africa, we visited the garden-winery-paradise that is Babylonstoren and came home with bottles of the house red, a galloping shiraz-blend called Babel. It wasn’t easy to get a hold of in the UK at the time, and we meted the bottles out as slowly as possible. Now, since the opening of The Newt in Somerset by the same owners, their wines (not just Babel, but also a single-varietal shiraz and cabernet, and a Bordeaux-style blend called Nebukadnesar) are available through the Newt’s farm shop. Tonight my parents-in-law are coming over for Bolognese, and we’ll have it with a Babel 2022.
10. PAIRS socks
This small company owned by two women in Scotland manufactures a variety of handsome, hearty socks from sustainable fibres, made in Britain. My favourite are the Undyed Alpaca Socks, which are retro-slouchy around the ankles and look terrific with Blundstones.
11. FARM SHOP Roasting Chicken with Honey Fermented Garlic
Here is the truth about FARM SHOP: you can’t go wrong. Everything in there is delicious. Last autumn I could not stop talking about the rhubarb hot sauce, which I dabbed onto egg sandwiches. Then it was the dandelion and orange spread (they don’t call it marmalade, but it tastes like the best marmalade you’ve ever had). Now it’s the roasting chickens, which I slather in their honey fermented garlic, mixed with a little soy sauce and lemon juice. You can order online, or pick things up in person from their shops in Somerset and Mayfair. For our Mother’s Day lunch, that’s what we’ll be having.
