Drat

For several weeks prior to Mothering Sunday, I tried to persuade my ailing frame that it was fit enough to travel into The Big Card Shops in town to purchase a suitable card.

(In the bosom of La Famille Editor, a card is only considered suitable if it roundly insults its recipient. The vast majority of the cards produced to mark Mothering Sunday are of the wholly unsuitable "I love my darling Mumsy" type. It is something of a challenge to track down a card which accuses one's mother of being a gin-sodden old harridan, but I've always managed to rise to that particular challenge in the past.)

My ailing frame was having none of it. My ailing frame protested that tottering round the corner to the local Tesco was as much as it could manage for the moment, thank you very much. The cards for sale in said Tesco were universally pastel of hue and saccharine of sentiment. They would not have been appreciated.

Not, you understand, that my considered decision not to inflict such a sickly monstrosity on my mother prevented my father from insisting (repeatedly, and at length) that my mother had been inconsolably distraught at the omission. My mother's audible cries to the contrary in the background did not deter him from his attack one whit. Neither was he long distracted by my innocent (no, really) statement to the effect that surely both my brothers would have sent cards to my mother. The fault for neither of them having done so was immediately laid firmly at my door: I, apparently, was guilty of failing to remind them that Mothering Sunday was imminent. (Being men, they have presumably been issued with those special man-blinkers which allow chaps to walk unimpeded through shopping centres and remain completely oblivious to whichever celebration day/week/month Hallmark et al are currently flogging in a manner similar to that with which one might flog a dead horse.)

This sort of tirade is what passes for fun in the Editor Senior household. And, to be honest, it is really rather entertaining. If you're accustomed to it, and if you have a sufficiently robust sense of humour to tolerate it, of course. Editor Pater has never really grasped the fact that some people don't share his preference for the verbal equivalent of being bludgeoned around the head and shoulders with a piece of lead piping: and victims who falter under his assault spoil all his fun.

However, I could have been spared this particular onslaught if only I had known about Moonpig. What an absolutely brilliant idea! You choose from thousands of cards (a great many of which are highly "suitable"); personalise your choice with your own message; and either have it sent to you so that you can sign it by hand and post it on or - and this is the really crip-friendly bit - they do the arduous posting for you! Ok, so it's not particularly cheap: but, in my rarely humble opinion, it's a very small price to pay for never having to battle through the pushchair-wielding crowds in WH Smiths, or limp - envelope in hand - in a pitiful fashion to the nearest post box, again.

The Editor