Here in the UK, Sunday just passed was Mothering Sunday. Do people still call it Mothering Sunday, or is that just a very old fashioned term that I use for Mother’s Day? I usually make quite a fuss of Mother’s Day, not only since becoming a Mother myself, but before that, it was always a day I would like to treat my Mum and make special. Usually we would mark it with a meal out, or an afternoon tea somewhere posh, get dressed up nicely and really enjoy the day. This year is different though with a Mother’s day spent in lockdown. I can’t quite recall last year’s Mother’s day, I think that might have been in lockdown too.

Nonetheless, just because we can’t go out anywhere, it doesn’t mean that we couldn’t still mark the occasion.

We started Saturday morning with a baking session. It’s fast becoming one of Little Misses favourite weekend activities, and once the cupcakes were done we put aside half of them for decorating on Sunday. During the afternoon little miss and I took a walk to the local Greengrocers, and as luck would have it they were selling posie baskets. I’d already bought Grandma a mother’s day gift from me, but thought this one would be nice from Little Miss. The whole way home I was explaining to her that she would need to walk in to Grandma and say ‘Happy Mother’s day’ and hand over the basket of flowers. She managed an exuberant ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ for Grandma, but alas forgot to hand over the posie, she’s just like her Mummy and wants all the flowers for herself.

On Sunday morning, little Miss and I enjoyed our usual weekend breakfast together. Breakfast is always a bit functional in the week, so when the weekend comes I like to make it a bit more luxurious with toasted muffins, smoked salmon and scrambled or poached egg. If we weren’t on lockdown, I’d probably take baba out for breakfast at least one Saturday of each month, but we are, so I can’t, but like everything I’m discovering in lockdown, I can still create something special and luxurious at home.

Then we set about decorating the cakes. Originally I had intended to do a mixture of some buttercream icing (which Little Miss had decided was going to be green) and some fondant icing printed with Happy Mother’s Day, but disaster struck while I was mixing the buttercream and my long struggling hand mixer decided it was going to break. Dramatically break, scattering particles of plastic and dust into the buttercream icing, so that was the end of that and instead we just ended up decorating a few of the cakes with ready to roll fondant. C’est la vie, they still looked pretty, and more importantly, tasted delicious. I only started baking cupcakes again quite recently and am trying to get better at my decorating. Not for any purpose, other than to be able to make nice cakes for baba, for her birthdays or other events.  

In the middle of that fiasco, however, I took delivery of a beautiful bouquet and card, my Mother’s day gift from Little Miss. It was a lovely surprise and I couldn’t wait to arrange the flowers into my trusty flower jug, and display it on the table with the posie from the day before. It’s so lovely to be surrounded by fresh flowers.

I’d previously ordered an afternoon tea from a local café, café View. It has an amazing view of the sea, and before lockdown we would visit from time to time for a cup of tea. It’s recently been bought by new owners, and when they showcased their delightful afternoon tea on FaceBook a week or so back I didn’t hesitate to order. Sunday afternoon, I nipped out and picked our feast up, all fresh and enticing. Back at home, I brewed a fresh pot of Fortnum and Mason Royal Blend, and got the cake stand out because, if you can’t get the cake stand out on Mother’s Day, then when can you? Then, we all feasted on fresh sandwiches, scones and desserts. There was so much there that even Bailey the dog got a Prawn sandwich, so he was pleased.

It was the first time I’d eaten anything from Café View in a very very long time, and certainly since they’ve had new ownership and it was delightful. Their portions are very generous and everything was very fresh and enjoyable. If that’s a sample of what they will be doing once they open, well I look forward to sitting in their window admiring the sea view while I sip on tea and eat cake. In fact, I wonder if they will be doing Saturday breakfasts….