This is what mums really want this Mother’s Day

Ah, Mother’s Day. That festival once known as Mothering Sunday, when maids would return to the mother church of their home parish, and then to their own mothers – now a commercial opportunity right up there with Valentine’s Day.

It’s an odd festival really, given that it celebrates women as child-bearer and rearers, but curiously feminists don’t seem to have a problem with it. It’s way more popular than International Women’s Day, which celebrates all women, which just goes to show that you disrespect mothers at your peril.

I am personally all for anything that entails my having breakfast in bed, which otherwise I only get on my birthday though I’ve never quite managed to secure the other treat of the day:  Afternoon Tea in a restaurant, though tragically this year, Claridge’s isn’t an option for anyone.

But what’s remarkable is the range of products that people seem to think will appeal to mothers. Flowers are lovely of course, though can we make it an armful of daffodils  - a pound a bunch! - or tulips and hyancinths rather than out of season, imported long-stemmed roses?

My garden at home had daffodils, and it was heartwarming how many of them disappeared the night before Mother’s Day. The perfect posy is the one you pick from your own garden, or someone else’s.

Chocolates are fine too, though can I just take issue with the notion that mothers necessarily like ones in a pink shell – personally, I’ll take one of those adorably packaged boxes from Charbonnel and Walker but nothing girly. M&S is offering, next to tulip shaped pink chocolates, pink champagne. Look, pink is not obligatory, though obviously I’d drink it.