Today is Mothering Sunday or Mother's Day here in the UK.
No one is absolutely certain exactly how the idea of Mothering Sunday began. However, it is known that on this day, about four hundred years ago, people made a point of visiting their nearest big church (the Mother Church). A cathedral is a very large church and the 'mother church' of all other churches in a diocese
People who visited their mother church would say they had gone "a mothering."
Also, young British girls and boys 'in service' (maids and servants) were only allowed one day to visit their family each year. This was usually Mothering Sunday. Often the housekeeper or cook would allow the maids to bake a cake to take home for their mother. Sometimes a gift of eggs; or flowers from the garden was allowed. Flowers were traditional, as the young girls and boys would have to walk home to their village, and could gather them on their way home through the
meadows.The most favoured cake was - the 'simnel cake'.
No one is absolutely certain exactly how the idea of Mothering Sunday began. However, it is known that on this day, about four hundred years ago, people made a point of visiting their nearest big church (the Mother Church). A cathedral is a very large church and the 'mother church' of all other churches in a diocese
People who visited their mother church would say they had gone "a mothering."
Also, young British girls and boys 'in service' (maids and servants) were only allowed one day to visit their family each year. This was usually Mothering Sunday. Often the housekeeper or cook would allow the maids to bake a cake to take home for their mother. Sometimes a gift of eggs; or flowers from the garden was allowed. Flowers were traditional, as the young girls and boys would have to walk home to their village, and could gather them on their way home through the
meadows.The most favoured cake was - the 'simnel cake'.Mothering Sunday is also sometimes know as Simnel Sunday because of this tradition of baking Simnel cakes. The Simnel cake is a fruit cake. A flat layer of marzipan (sugar almond paste) is placed on top of and decorated with 11 marzipan balls representing the 12 apostles minus Judas, who betrayed Christ.
After the sad news of the tragic death of Natasha Richardson, and now with the breaking news that Jade Goody died in her sleep, Mother's Day takes on a terrible poignancy with the reminder that for two families of young boys, as for many others, who have lost their mother far too early, Mother's Day will be a time of loss and sadness rather than happiness. We've been through this in the Babe Magnet's family when his younger sister was killed in a car crash, leaving a son and daughter even younger than the two Neeson boys.
So I'd just like to wish every one of my friends and readers a Happy Mother's Day full of love and togetherness. And remember my own mother on this special day.
4 comments:
Happy mother's day, Kate. Or should that be cyber-mum's day?
What a lovely photo of your mother.
Poignant post, Kate.
xxx
Happy mother's day, Kate. You're so like your mother!
You're making her proud, Kate!
LindaC
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