Monday, March 03, 2008

A mother's day confession

I think it's time to come clean. It's been 17 years. I hope we can be forgiven.

On Mother's Day 17 years ago the children, with husband's help, cooked me toad-in-the-hole for lunch. (For those of you not familiar with this dish, it's sausages cooked in a pudding batter. ) I remember it clearly because it was the tiniest bit heavy and I struggled to eat it - although the real reason I was struggling to eat was that, the previous week, Husband had been diagnosed with cancer.
The children were all small then. Daughter, the oldest, would have been just 11. After lunch Husband suggested that we go and find some frog spawn for our pond. One of the children, Elder Son probably, said that there was frog spawn in their school pond. (His class teacher at the time was also teacher with responsibility for nature studies.) 'Come on then,' said Husband, 'we'll get some from there.'
We made our way up to the school grounds, which, of course at a weekend, were locked. Not to be deterred Husband squeezed through a gap in the fence, made his way to the pond, took out some frog spawn and returned the way he had gone. In our defence let me say that we - Husband and I - were both still in a state of shock at the news of Husband's illness. Little things - like breaking and entering - didn't seem to matter much in the grand scale of things. We took the spawn home and rehomed them successfully in our pond.
And then we didn't think any more about it having other issues on our minds.
That summer the time came for the regular parents' evening. I went along to meet the teachers while Husband stayed home with the children. Now our children were all well-behaved and quite bright; there was never a lot that needed to be said at parents' evening, so I assume it must have been to fill the silence that Elder Son's teacher mentioned that the school pond didn't have any frogs that year. 'Someone must have come in and taken all the frog spawn,' she explained in a most disapproving voice.
Now I'm sure Husband wouldn't have taken it all; he'd have been very careful about something like that. Maybe someone else had the same idea as us and wasn't so particular. Or something ...
I said the only thing I could in the circumstances, 'We have some frogs if you'd like some of our spawn next year.'
xx

9 comments:

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Well, I'm glad you've got that off your chest at last!! Lovely post. You must both have been in a terrible state and I don't think a little frog's spawn between friends will matter in the end!

jmb said...

Catching up here Liz. I see you celebrated St David's day in style, sort of, running about like a mad thing. Me, a half Scot, went to a St David's Day concert by the Vancouver Welsh Men's choir so I had a good time too.
Lovely story here and I'm glad that you all survived to tell the tale. Cheeky! Would you like some of our spawn?

Puss-in-Boots said...

Oh dear. That was a time for you. I'm surprised you were able to even think of frog spawn at a time like that.

Obviously all turned out well for your husband...and the school got some more frogs...from others as well as you.

Take care.

Dragonstar said...

Confession is good for the soul! I hope you had a good load of frogspawn that year.

Come on over and join the slender set - it's only 12 weeks . . . .

Unknown said...

After 17 years, I suppose it’s time you all fessed up! Of course, having had a pond next to my uncle’s house, where I spent much of my summer vacations, I would just as soon not have any all-night croaking frogs in the pond.

Gledwood said...


Isn't toad in the hole wonderful!

I mentioned Mother's Day on my post yesterday and managed to make someone from Australia (where they celebrate the American-date Mother's Day which comes about 6 weeks later) really paranoid she'd somehow mist it! haha!!

Glad you had a great day. I stayed in bed feeling miserable. Phoned my Mum around 8pm with my bestest wishes... I get to see her either this or next weekend

hey are you going to post up some new Liz-Nigella mk II cookery youtube? Come on!! You remind me of a certain wellknown actress but her name utterly escapes me...!

-eve- said...

*bursts out laughing*
That's very funny! It's also the first time I've ever heard of anyone wanting frog spawn, or frogs, for that matter! *the ornamental ponds here just have ornamental fish* A strange thing indeed *unless perhaps, the frogs keep the mosquitoes down?*

CherryPie said...

Nice story but I bet you were feeling awful at the time!!

Leslie: said...

Gee, I remember one year when my parents lived in a place where there was a pond full of frogs. And every summer night they couldn't sleep because of the noise! So it seems strange to me to go to such trouble to get more! lol