As the fond Mother gratefully can give

Yesterday, of course, was Mothering Sunday, an occasion marked by a visit from my mother, since work has kept me pinned to the desk in Oxford this year. A few days' break was therefore much welcomed and we had a wonderful weekend, including a visit to Christ Church, where we saw Peter Rabbit (really, not even any alcohol involved), and a proper cooked breakfast at Brown's Cafe in the Covered Market which I think has provided me with a nice reserve of fat for the next few weeks. There was also a French Market on Broad Street over the weekend, which was particularly great since I'm never brave enough to speak French without the security of mum as a translator for the ones with odd accents.

Amongst its other beauties, Christ Church has some wonderful stained glass, and I've become particularly enamoured of a dragon in one of the windows. I told my housemate P that I would quite like the dragon to be my next boyfriend - after all, he'd be very protective, probably have interesting perspectives on the world, and all that. P's response was "yeah, but you know what people would say - 'What's he doing with her? What is he thinking?'" So maybe the dragon and I are doomed from the start by social pressure. People can be so narrow-minded at times.

Singing with my choir Sunday morning was fun, especially since all the women in the church were given a bunch of flowers for Mothering Sunday. Though the pressure this places on a 26-year-old lacking, as yet, even the slightest sign of parental status is quite significant! The sermon involved a question-and-answer session with the children: "So, who do we think about particularly on Mothering Sunday?" - "Jesus!" pipes up one of the munchkins. I do wonder whether there isn't some truth in the idea that Christianity is a little bit patriarchally-centred. Later: "The little boy whose mummy put him in a basket on the river, who did he grow up to be?" - "Jesus!" (same munchkin, I think). I guess that, 90% of the time, "Jesus" will be the correct answer to a Sunday-School teacher's question...