Me Mammy

My mam is 60 years young today. Some things you may or may not know about her:

* her real name is Christina
* she has an amazing ability to remember song lyrics. we spent many a happy childhoon car journey having sing alongs
* she likes the night life, she likes to boogie (& can do a mean Charleston)
* she is very proud of being the same height as Queen Victoria (4ft 11)
* she used to work for Aer Lingus & used to get free flights all over Europe, which, I believe, was the start of a life time love affair with travelling the world
* she has been to nearly all continents: Europe, America, Australia, Asia, Africa
* she may well be one of the only people I know who is getting younger rather than older (certainly in maturity) so that now she is more like a fun older sister to me and my siblings
* she will always finish her plate and could never be described as a fussy eater
* she is incredibly strong. At 39 she left her close knit family in Ireland to travel to Australia with 4 young kids so we'd have a better life and has been working hard ever since
* although having said that how she can be in charge of the entire finances for a school is a little bit frightening for those of us who know what her memory is like!!
* she has a great sense of humour. Recent quote at her birthday "the nuns got up to dance at my 60th when I told them, but that's cos they are used to following orders"
* she was and still is the baby of her family- they all look after her
* she is very good at delegating- recently she got a big glass jar and put in a whole heap of bits of paper with jobs written on them so Phil could take one job out at a time and complete it. Talk about making housework fun- she has always been creative like this!
* she has many, many friends. And her childrens' friends count her as a friend too
* she used to sell Tupperware and when we were growing up we learnt most of our life lessons (including the alphabet) surrounded by the Tupperware Seal
* "hit you do I?" (can't put this full story online, I'm too afraid)
* she remembers dancing around to Abba's winning Eurovision Song Contest entry Waterloo with Denise in her arms. Even though I would have only been a wee bairn myself this image is very strong in my head!
* once she gets your name wrong, it's wrong for life
* she makes a glamorous mother of the bride
* she used to throw elegant 70's dinner parties and we loved coming down the next morning to left over Bernaise sauce, fondue and, if very lucky, that ginger log cake thing
* she can rent & watch a movie several times without realising it
* she throws an excellent party

Any many other things that make us all proud to have her as our mammy.
Happy Birthday!

PS a couple that mam has reminded me of herself!!
* she once forgot to lock the car door while driving us to school and we all remember the school bags flying out of the front seat (no children were harmed in this)
* she used to let us draw on the walls in our bedrooms, thus developing our infamous creative talents and one year even let us take over the whole of the "good" front room wall to create a Christmas mural- complete with cotton wool Santa beard and reindeer flying across the roof tops. In my memory this was a work of art to make Banksy jealous
* she once cut the legs out of Phil's tracksuit pants whilst on our Campervan summer holiday because he wouldn't wear shorts (he'd been called icecream legs by the kids at school). I'm pretty certain he was wearing them at the time too