Side-tracking even more from the question, as we do, my daughter was cast as a snowflake in the school Christmas play and about ten days before the perfomrance she told me that she needed a costume. I walked the length of Oxford Street in London several times in search of a plain white top and skirt to stitch with some sequins. Eventually, I bought a tutu pattern, some white satin and some white net and telephoned a friend to ask to borrow her sewing machine. The bodice and fitted knicker part of the garment went smoothly but the skirt consisted of several layers of net, gathered and folded over (not how tutus are made professionally). If I stitched and gathered once, I must have done it a dozen times and every time I pulled up the gathers, the thread broke. On the Saturday before the performance, I explained that some mummies are good at some things and some mummies are not and promised to have one more go. Husband peeling potatoes in the kitchen, small girl sitting on the floor next to me – we all held our breath. Painstakingly, I pulled up the gathers in what was slowly turning into a dishrag and finally wound the thread around a pin. A small voice at my knee said, "Would you like a glass of sherry, Mummy?" What has become known as the snowfrock flake is now a legend in our family.
