Mothers' Day

Today is Mother's Day in Australia. Here in Việt Nam they celebrate International Women's Day as well as Vietnamese Women's Day, so our western tradition of Mother's Day is already well and truly covered. Nevertheless, I had the delight of skyping my gorgeous children and grandchildren, so I didn't feel left out! It is always so good to have a chat. Even though I skype Katie and her family daily, it's only occasionally that I get to say hello to Greg and Gemma and Caelyn, and today was one of those occasions. They are all looking fabulous, and Caelyn is growing quickly.  Katie dropped in to see my Mum and took her a letter from me and she is doing well, too.

I had a pretty normal Sunday, teaching as usual, but this evening Will invited me to join a bunch of teachers having a pub-quiz night at Paragon Cafe not far from here. There were 15 TESOL teachers from all over the place -  Great Britain, South Africa, Canada, the US.... and they were a delightful bunch. We assembled in the outdoor lounge area where there were fans and a huge flat-screen TV on the wall.

We divided into tables of three and were half way through our quiz when all af a sudden the TV was turned up loud and the Premiership League soccer final was on!  By then a large group of locals had gathered to watch the game and we were in the incongruous position of trying to run a pub-quiz sitting between the locals and the big telly! I'm sure they were all wondering if we were from another planet...

Half way through the football match we were still at our quizzing, when Khánh arrived with a huge bunch of flowers for me for Mother's Day!!! What a lovely surprise.  The other westerners were all intrigued as to why he brought me flowers, since they all know Khánh and Xuân through their friendship with Will, but they didn't know me or how I fitted into the picture...  A little while later Xuân also arrived, so I had both my boys wishing me a Happy Mother's Day!

When the pub-quiz scores were tallied up, my group came in a close second, and the group Khánh joined won.  We sat around chatting and watching the game. Khánh was barraking for Manchester City because they haven't won the championship for half a century or so and it looked like they were going to go down until the last 3 minutes, when they scored an equaliser, quickly following up with the winning goal. Exciting finish!! It was a very popular win among those watching at Paragon Cafe.

It was well after midnight by the time Khánh and Xuân brought me a home and as I was taking my flowers out of their bright paper wrappings I realised I hadn't taken any photos... Oh well, there's always the next pub-quiz in a fortnight.   Still, here are my gorgeous flowers.

Mothers Day flowers from Khánh