Her: You look beautiful, Mummy.
Me: Thank you sweetheart.
Her (anxiously): Are you going out to a work dinner?
Me (looking at my grubby work clothes which I, stupidly, wore to feed the children and put them to bed): No, sweetheart, look at me, I’m filthy.
Her: I still think you’re beautiful, especially when you smile.
Me: What a nice thing to say.
Her: I have to set Daddy a good example.
It reminds me of when I was a little girl and I thought my mother was the most beautiful woman in the world. I remember particularly once when my mother was going to a garden party; it was the early 1970s and she was wearing a maxi dress with lots of different colours, though I think large pink flowers predominated and a big floppy white hat on her long blonde hair. I can remember not wanting her to go so that I could keep looking at her all afternoon.