“I was in the park with a boy”. My mum finally got the truth out of me. No, I wasn’t at dance class, no I wasn’t admiring the natural beauty of Sundon Park Rec. I was at the Rec with a boy and now I was in deep trouble. I was grounded.
My mum put up with a lot from me as a child. She, like your mum no doubt, deserves a medal. Not all of my escapades were bad, but this was a particularly low day in my teens. The less worrying but much more ardent pursuits of my formative years were of the 'eco' variety.
“I am now a vegetarian”. The phase my mother thought would never end. In fact, it lasted for years (I’m still not a big meat eater but I do enjoy a happy, organic chicken).
“I would like a dog”. Despite my menagerie of mice, gerbils, hamsters, rabbits, rats, guinea pigs, budgies, cats, fish and chickens, my mum drew a line at a dog. Apparently, dad is allergic but I’m yet to see the doctor’s note.
“You don’t understand! The whales and dolphins are dying because of trawler nets!”. This is true, and a very good point. However, one can only take so much preaching.
“What do you mean I smell like rhino poo?”. My mum suffered being in close proximity to me whilst driving me home from my work experience at Whipsnade Zoo. I did smell like rhino poo.
There are so many hilarious stories relating to my encounters with nature and my mum’s unending patience and tolerance to a lifelong passion. It helps that she too is an eco-warrior at heart, being a country girl and all.
Mum has always been there to support my projects. When we organised the Strawberry Fair Kids Field she camped on site with us and manned the face painting. When we paraded with hundreds of lanterns to the Big Christmas Lights Switch On, she was there running the lantern making workshop.
When I started BeeBee Wraps she was there encouraging me to keep going, shouting the loudest and pretty shamelessly proud. Starting an eco-business seems pretty crazy but mum understood how perfectly normal this was and just the next stage in my life. She doesn’t use clingfilm now either, she’s proud of her (huge) collection of BeeBee Wraps and doesn’t mind telling anyone. My mum is probably always the first person to like our posts on Facebook.
So, this goes out to Trish. Thank you mum. You really are lovely, totally awesome and so much fun.
Writing this shout out to my mum led me to ponder on ‘Mother Earth’. (Don’t go!!! I know I may have just lost your attention with a notoriously ‘hippie’ moment. Bear with me, it’s not so dissimilar to the mum stuff.)
Earth is our only home and we’ve left it in such a state. So far Earth has been pretty tolerant but we’re playing the part of the misbehaving child a little too well. We’ve really not done right by Mumma Earth, have we!? In fact, if Earth could dish out the discipline, we'd be grounded.
I joke, but it's actually not that funny. It is not the same planet it was a thousand years ago, even a hundred years ago. If I treated my mum like this, I’d be in trouble. And that’s where we find ourselves, in a whole lot of trouble.
My mum’s patience sometimes wore thin but luckily for both of us I never pushed her over the edge. How much more can ‘Mother Earth’ cope with before we push too far?
On a day when you treat your mum to a slap-up meal, a big cuddle with flowers and feet up time, take a moment to think about how we can do better by Earth.
Hippie shit over. As you were.
Kath x
P.S. Sorry for the swearing, mum.
You’ve turned out pretty good anyway! Very proud Mama.x