Calypso Rose
16-01-2024
Mother's Day at indy HQ
"Last year she gave me a necklace with my nickname carved out in gold. This is just in case I forget who I am and have to be returned"
As I am her mother, and Head of Some Things at The Indytute, Calypso, who likes to ring changes when she can, asked me to write about my thoughts on Mother’s Day. Last year she gave me a necklace with my nickname carved out in gold. This is just in case I forget who I am and have to be returned, in this case to the giver.
My grandson calls me ‘GiMo’, but the ‘O’ looked just like an ‘A’, she swears it’s not a typo and I have been asked if I am called ‘Gina’, which I’m not. I am a fan of Mother’s Day. It doesn’t come with as much angst as Christmas or even birthdays. It usually comes in the shape of a delicious lunch, or tea, something fizzy or if everyone’s too preoccupied to arrange something on the day, a card with the promise of future treats.
It is also the time to catch up with Calypso, who leads a somewhat peripatetic life. Just when I think she is in King’s Cross, she can pop up in Deal, or Richmond via Leeds. I can be tricky on this front too, but our lives usually manage to cross somewhere on the Piccadilly line. Given her occupation, it is a given that I won’t be going anywhere average. I expect her to take me somewhere I haven’t been, preferably haven’t heard of and possibly might want to go again. It often means that I head off to interesting parts of London I wouldn’t normally go to, so the day starts off with the fond hope that Google will get me there. Calypso has no sense of direction - even with the map - although she recently headed our works outing on a guided tour of Paris, with only one unforced error, a major result by our standards. I have watched her get on the wrong train while waving my arms from the opposite platform. One Christmas she rang from the station hotel Taunton. No, we don’t live there.
I am off in a couple of weeks for a patisserie day in Bath, courtesy of Calypso, who clearly thinks I don’t get out enough. Pudding skills here I come. Now it could have been wakeboarding or Wim Hoff - and with Mother’s Day coming up I’m not quite out of the woods but she knows that cold water and feats of physical prowess are alien to me.
All I do know is that I am lucky to have her. There is no one I would rather share the day with - or any day come to that - and don’t panic Calypso. Remember when you get lost in the supermarket, wherever it is, I absolutely promise to come and find you xxxx M.