Nitt Witt Lodge - an Odd Place To Visit In California, USA

 

After you have seen ten Greek ruins in Greece, ten Roman ruins in Italy, ten national parks and ten bears in America or Canada, ten big trees in America, New Zealand and all over, ten homes of famous people whose books you never read, then what? Maybe something completely different, amusing, amazing, which does not require you to research the history of a country or read a classic book, just an amusement, and lots of amusing photos. I have seen shell houses and grottoes in the UK, mostly at seasides, and the Dancing house restaurant in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic (pricey, but even the all different chairs and paint your own paper  table mats are amusing). Here's a wonderful place to visit in California, the Nitt Witt House.

Apart from being a natural hoarder and collector of items others throw out, such as cans and bottles, how did the builder find all the practical bigger bits? At one point he was a city rubbish collector. That is an opportunity as well as an inspiration. He kept building all his life and lived into his nineties. Life was never dull for him. Every day a surprise, creativity. Joy in life. Alas, after he died, for a while it was empty and vandalised. But new owners restored it and opened it as a tourist attraction. Add it to your wish list.

A bit of fun.

Lessons Learned

An example of creativity.

How to avoid problems with planning permission.

How to be famous when you have no possessions and no skills.

How to beat boredom.

How to recycle.

It's on the California register of Historic Places. 

Here are some more to visit, maybe nearer to you. 

• 
  

Here are some more:

USA

• Watts Towers. Sabato "Simon" Rodia constructed towers of wire, concrete and fragments of tile and china, in theWattsneighborhood ofLos Angeles.   
• Baldassare Forestiere, another Italian immigrant in California born the same year as Rodia who built theForestiere Underground Gardens, inFresno.  
• ISRAEL
• Hermit House, a unique residence located inHerzliya,Israelwith intricate mosaics entirely constructed by one man over thirty years.   
• Mystery Castle, a house inPhoenix, Arizonabuilt in the 1930s in a similar style.  
• Rubel Castle, a house inGlendora, Californiaconstructed in a similar style.  
• Ferdinand Cheval, a French postman who constructed an "ideal palace" out of rocks in his spare time.
• Justo Gallego Martínez, a Spaniard who built his own cathedral.
• Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village. A woman who built a whole village of discarded bottles.
• House on the Rock Alex Jordan, Jr. constructed "Japanese House" atop rock pinnacle in Spring Green, WI.
• Coral Castle, a unique estate made entirely of hand-carved stone by an eccentric immigrant.

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitt_Witt_Ridge

Go Recycling - Cleaning Up a beach in Hawaii - could you clean up your beach or city?

Trash Or Stash?
Trash is a worldwide problem. It isn't just ugly. First it is harming wildlife. Photos on the internet show abandoned fishing nets strangling turtles and tangled around the fins of fish. A turtle has a straw stuck up its nose. Birds and fish have pieces of plastic and plastic bags in their stomachs. The plastic is not excreted but forming a giant blockage or ball, uncomfortable, and killing them. 

How can we stop this happening? Prevention or cure? Cure is good. But prevention is better. Cure is good, necessary, but we must think longterm, because with the human population expanding, wildlife is diminishing. The Chinese curbed the birthrate of citizens in Shanghai to one child per family, although the government has now changed that policy.

We can prevent plastic being made. Recycle existing plastic. It is no use doing one without the other. But no use avoiding doing one because you or your orgnaization cannot do all three. You do what you can do. Others do what they can do. Together we can make a difference.

How do you change habits? Analyse your own family's behaviour and try to co-ordinate. You see what a baby does. it picks up things to look at them. Bored, it throws them away.

How can we utilitse the children's urge to throw? Stones in a pond? Making ripples.  What about plastic? Instead of throwing plastic where it should not go, throw it where it should go.

I have videos on the internet of litter bins which are shaped like creatures with a mouth which opens to receive litter like big versions of pedal bins in your home or nearby supermarket. The bin then says thank you or well done or somethign amusing in a voice matching the bin design, quakcing duck, or whatever. 

Next, I immediately envisage bottle caps being used to be thrown at targets in a game. Children will gather items to collect to throw into bins, or to make into a game.

Some people, adults, like to collect. Encourage them to collect litter.

Some people like to throw away. Encourage them to throw things in the right bin.

Some people like to create. Encourage them to create objects from abandoned plastic.

Songs
Songwriters can write a recycling song for their favourite project or city or the world. Here's my immediate effort.

Song:
What are you doing today
by Angela Lansbury
What are you doing today? Are you throwing your life away?
Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Will you litter and dirty?  Or clean up our earth! 

 Look - Litter's heartbreaking. Help! You could be making
Our precious earth, more dirty or clean than it was at your birth.
Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Will you litter and dirty?  Or clean up our earth! 

You could be prospecting. You could be collecting.
 Instead of thwarting, you could be sorting.

Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Don't you litter and dirty?  Help clean up our earth! 

We're circled by plastic. But life is elastic.
Let's pick up the litter. Let's make our life better.
While you are here, collect, recycle, make a great souvenir.
Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Will you litter and dirty?  Or clean up our earth! 

How was the wonderful world at your birth?
The plants and tall trees which grew from moist earth
Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Will you litter and dirty?  Or clean up our earth! 

When each grain of sand could smoothe your small your hand
When you could spend hours just sniffing the flowers
Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Will you litter and dirty?  Or clean up our earth! 

School kids walked and looked, toddlers turned picture books
Magnificent mountains, soft, pure clean water, magic dancing fountains
Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Will you litter and dirty?  Or clean up our earth! 

Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Will you drop litter?  Or will you tidy and clean up our earth! 
Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Don't you litter and dirty?  Help clean up our earth! 

Angela Lansbury. Copyright 2019.
Please pass on with the author's tagline. Sing to your favourite traditional out of copyright tune.

Reward. Advertise rewards.

Punish. Advertise fines.

Here's one way to do it. Like the Canadian company in Hawaii did it. Not hurting or harming. helping.

Don't hurt. Don't harm. Help.

CLEARING BEACHES BIG TIME - BIG PROJECTS
Clenaing. Inventing. A team in Canada set about a project on cleaning plastic from a beach and picked a nototrious beach. Hawaii.

The solution was simple. Vacuum the beach with a tube from a large vacuum cleaner.

However, how do you separate the sand from the plastic? Put what you collected in water. The sand sinks. The plastic floats.

Great. That will help beaches on an industrial scale where there is a huge problem.

LOVELY LITTER
But there's litter everywhere. On beaches and promenades by the beaches. We eat and drink all day. We throw away everything we use.

Look around the nearest room, building, garden, street. What do you see?

Wrapping for food. Drinks bottles. cereal packets. paper bags. Plastic bags. Bottle tops.

HOLIDAY CLEAR UP
On a small scale you could do this with a bucket of water.

If every family visiting the beach, instead of collecting shells, collected plastic, we could all make a difference.

REWARDS
Every visit and local who clears up can be rewarded with a badge or piece of jewellery made from part of a plastic bottle.

Cut the bottom off a see-through plastic bottle and you have a circular see-through badge or brooch and cut out a circle from a piece of abandoned paper and you have a name tag, buseiness card or advertisement.

Ships
Every ship should pay a plastic tax. Or carry its own rcycling bins and recycling machines, and run recycling classes. Insted of dropping litter, ships should collect it.

No need to worry about dirt on things you pick up making you or the family dirty. Plastic in the sea has already been washed. Plastic on the beach can be washed in the sea or the shower.

I used to collect shells as a child. It was years before I discvoered that shells were the abandoned homes of dead sea creatures.

CHILDREN CAN COLLECT
Today's children have another opportunity. They can collect coloured bottle tops and put them in a recycling bin.

Plastic should be collected and remoulded into litter bins.

RECYCLING PLASTIC INTO JEWELLERY
But where does that litter go? Not back into the bins then out to sea. Instead it can be made into bracelets and necklaces.

Classes for tourists. Free classes - if you collect a big bag of littler. Otherwise low cost lessons, or even, free but donations welcome. Make souvenirs of your holiday. Donate for the class. Donate for the jewellery you make. Take it home.

Or donate it to be sold or given away. People can buy it. Or take it home as souvenir for your holiday and  donate money.

You are often asked, 'What did you do on holiday?' You have an answer.

You did not leave litter behind. You helped clear it up.

Useful Websites
Problem
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/waves-garbage-are-washing-beach-dominican-republic-180969747/
Solution
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-48551041/how-do-you-vacuum-plastic-from-a-beach

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and phtographer, author and speaker. If you need a speaker on the environment, I have won two levels of contests on speeches on the environment. I can speak on radio or TV or give an amusing keynote speech.

Plastics? Leave Only Footprints

I  won through the first level of the contest of a speech about the environment. Then the second level.

Later I was called to speak on stage at a training for would be entrepreneurs to demonstrate the ability to speak in public to raise awareness for a cause or charity.

I said:

When I walk around a room like this or the street in a city, I notice all the debris that human beings leave behind, on tables and under chairs and in wastebins. We are like snails which leave behind slime, a trail of evidence of where they have been.

It doesn't have to be like that. You must have seen pictures of the debris left behind after a major event such as a rock concert in a field. Piles of trash left behind. It doesn't have to look like that next day. Every monring you can walk into Disney World and the place is pristine clean, because a group of poeple have cleaned up.

Seeing the place look clean has encouraged everybody to keep it clean. In Canada they found that even two pieces of litter on the ground was enough to make others think everybody was dropping litter and it was OK to do so. So do your bit.

If a million people in a city all drop litter we have a mess, and clutter in the ocean. If a million pople use recycling bins or better still take litter home, which everybody does in Japan, we would have clean cities and clean oceans. You can pick up a piece of litter dropped by somebody else.

When I walk past a shopping mall I see beautiful bags discarded in bins next to the smart shops. Big tote bags with lovely handles. If the bags are pretty and clean I rescue them. They can all be reused.

Most of the things we throw away could be reused. A discarded t-shirt which is old or stained or no longer wanted because it has last year's date could be made into a tee-towel. Clothes which don't fit can be changed. A top which is too tight can be slit up the sides and made into a tabard or tunic.

When I walk around the ground floor of both public housing and provate condos, I see large items of furniture abandoned by the bins. Chairs and tables have a missing leg or are chipped or need repainting.

Singapore flag

A Singapore resident told me that Singaporeans like to throw out the old and buy new. But those items, if taken to Malaysia would be used by poor people or owners of second hand shops. Old TVs and screens would be fixed.

All the small items could be reused in our homes. In the Sixties it was fashionable to conver a glass bottle into a table lamp and you could buy a top to fix to the bottle. A plastic or glass bottle can be cut in half and made into a flower vase or a  pen and pencil holder.

A cardboard cereal box can be cut diagonally and turned into a magazine holder. At Chrsitmas I have seen ceral boxes advertising that the box can be flattned and reused as a board game which is printed on the reverse of the box. I hope that one day we will all be able to reduce the mount of waste from a house or building to only the contents of one small box a year, as has been done by at least one family who experimented to see if it was possible. Yes, it is. That is my vision for my future, and yours and ours.

Author
Angela Lansbury.

Plastics and the Environment

Today on line has a video about an artist in Singapore who has created an 18 seater table resembling a beach, in order to focus people's eyes and minds on the fact the plastics are polluting the water and the seafood we eat, as well as the beaches.

On the table surrounding the plates are microplastics he found on the beach.

Microplastics are particles of plastic, after the plastic items have been tossed about in the sea, presumably for eeveral months.

What you can do:

Shoppers
1 Buy re-usable water bottles.
2 Buy metal straws.

Crafts and DIY enthusiasts
Shred thin plastic, heat it in a sandwich maker and turn it into thick multicolour plastic.

What the country's local council can do about recycling.
Invest in more recycling instead of burning plsatic which we have washed and sorted.
Local disintegrating bags for kitchen waste
Compost bins.
Use up leftover food.
Give away or sell off leftover food.
Recycling shops.
Recycling goods: eg plastic bottle tops made into murals.
Milk bottles made into watering cans or jugs.
Plastic bottles made into pencil boxes.

How Manufacturing can use receycling

Useful Websites

Angela Lansbury
Travel Writer.

How to recycle Merry Xmas cake decorations for your cake or table decorations

I saw somebody throw Xmas cake decorations in the bin and thought, What a waste! I am keen on recycling.
I took the decorations home. In the UK, I have saved my own cake decorations from one year to the next.
This year I went to two Xmas parties in Singapore where the cake decorations were not wanted by anyone else.
I was looking at the decorations which had fallen on their sides, and at the lid of a milk carton I had just finished. It occured to me that the coloured plastic stopper from the milk carton was just the right size for a pot for a little plastic tree from a cake.

I just needed a hole for the spike.

How do you make the hole?

1 Use an electric drill.
2 Use an awl.
3 Use the sharp point of a pair of scissors - not a small pair you might break.

Go carefully. If the hole is too big, your Xmas tree will stand at an angle as if it is about to fall over. You may have to twist it around and stand it against a support.

My most successful method was with the ends of a corn on the cob pick, You have to be very careful. You don't want the hole too big, nor too small. You don't want to force the point down onto a work surface which might be scratched or pock marked or damaged, nor to risk the spike going through suddenly. But don't hold it in the air and risk it going through suddenly and scratching yourself.

I was delighted with the result. cute and colourful. I thought I could take it with me on holiday at Christmas. If the country in Asia or China or elsewhere does not celebrate Xmas, I still have my weeny Xmas decorations for Xmas in the bedroom or Xmas Day breakfast in bed.

Recycling in Singapore - and the Malay words for electronics only

Well, here is a surprise. I was wondering when we would be able to do more recycling. The future is here already.

The Malay word sahaja means only. So, elektronik sahaja means electronics only.

CAN YOU Spot the missing word in this notice

BYO for Wine Groups In Restaurants - how to organise BYO, transporting, tasting and recycling bottles

Problem
How do you organize a wine tasting group in a hotel, restaurant, business premises or home?

Answers
I belong to several wine tasting groups in the UK, about half a dozen. I am also on the mailing list of wine festivals and events worldwide. Plus events organized by restaurants, bars, wine shops and the Wine Association. One of the groups meets in a restaurant in London. We match wines to food, which is pretty simple, starting with a sparkling white, drinking reds through the main course which is mostly stronger flavour meats, ending with sweet wines to go with dessert.

Details about wines and wine matching are on Grapedeal website. All website links are grouped at the end for you to turn to when you have finished reading this post.

Our group's organiser chose a Croydon restaurant, only as convenient for his home. He runs another company wine group based on his former workplace in central London. The Croydon venue attracts people from as far north of London as Watford, and as far out of London as Faversham in Kent.

Well-Travelled Members
The group attracts a complete mix of nationalities, from those whose parents are from the UK, to others descended from parents born in Germany, Italy, and the Cameroons in Africa. All are well travelled. One teaches on cruise ships.  Others travel with work. Discussion over cocktails and lunch ranged from 'my recent trip to Valencia in Spain', to India, and Boston in the USA.

For many years this group met at a hotel in Croydon. Then a new manager apparently changed the rules about BYO (bring your own).  We believe our leader negotiated better prices for a large group to meet at The Boulevard.

BYO
Wine societies are always looking for restaurants which allow BYO for specialist groups. Another factor is a set price for three courses with coffee including service. That makes it so much easier for the group organizer to book a table for a certain number and know what each person must pay.

The advantage to the restaurant is that they can regularly fill a large table and know what everybody will be paying, and no non-payers, and all customers are regulars and reliable.

BYO is very common in New Zealand.

In the UK, you can search online for BYO. Sometimes you get BYO in family-run restaurants, especially ethnic restaurants which don't specialise in wine. Another opportunity is from newly opened restaurants which don't yet have a license.

If you phone around, you may find that some places want to charge a prohibitive price for corkage; but others are very happy to charge nothing and just keen to get business to fill a back room or a large table lunchtime or evening, mid-week or weekend.

You might get a deal if you simply keep going through your list until you find somebody willing to meet your needs. The other advantage for a club is having an organizer who is retired and has time to research. Another option, a bonus, is a charming but canny negotiator.

Negotiating Skills
What does a negotiatior need? To enjoy researching. To compliment the chef, owner, hotel or restaurant or manager or staff. To work out what the restaurant wants, more business, to fill the place at off-peak hours, to build up business long-term, gain goodwill?  To concentrate on the price per meal? To concentrate on the total which the restaurant will get?

To be easy-going or tough? Or to have two negotiatiors, Mr tough and Mr nice?

To get a free drink or for everybody attending, or a free meal for the organizer? To be a regular customer at the restaurant in addition to organizing the club? To compare what other restarants in the area or country offer, or what other groups are paying?

Pay Straight Away
If your diners only want one type of wine with the main course, you could have an arrangement that everybody pays cash or credit card at the time of ordering for aperitifs and for after dinner drinks.
However, many retired people have spent a lifetime collecting wines and have specialist wines which are no longer available and would not be sold in most restaurants.

The last two events I attended were for wine pairings. We compared two wines.

On one special occasion for a wedding anniversary we had twelve wine glasses per person for a table of about twelve people. You drink only a small measure of each.

Safety First
You don't drive home.You take a train or a taxi. You make sure somebody sober collects you from the station.

Leftovers
I didn't drink port or spirits. If you have leftovers they can be corked up and taken home.

Open Bottles Banned
Notice that opened bottles of wine or cans of beer are not allowed on some stations and trains in the UK. Signs may tell you.

Why would the powers that be do this? Are they just being spoilsports?

No. Rules and bye-laws are brought in to stop drunks lurching around, singing annoyingly, accosting passengers. Worse still, drunks could be being sick, urinating on walls, or onto electrical lines.

They might start fighting each other, or amusing offering to share drinks or alarmingly demanding drinks money from passengers. You don't want winos and down-and-outs sleeping on benches and underfoot, assaulting railway staff, and falling under trains. If it never happens, it's because the management and staff don't let it happen.

UK Responsibility
Many UK restaurant menus have warnings about units of alcohol and drinking responsibly. At one company wine club, the staff insisted that a visiting lecturer add a warning on the printed tasting notes.

USA
In the USA in some States, you cannot have opened bottles of wine in a car. One restaurant in the USA would not allow us to take home an opened bottle for this reason, they claimed.

Transporting Heavy Wines
If you have packing to prevent access to the bottles, and to keep them hidden inside a locked suitcase, and you are sober, or the person with the locked suitcase is sober, that would be better.

Transporting wines for a group of 12-36 people, or more, means moving heavy bottles. Sometimes the bottles can be delivered to the venue the previous day and kept in a locked cellar at the venue.

Leftover bottles
What about the leftovers? What a waste! At one event, two of the ladies took home a half bottle each to cook in a casserole. Empty bottles can be kept for display, or converted into table lamps, for fun, for gifts, for decoration at home in the kitchen or lounge, or restaurants in the wine bar or dining room, for a pub, for a museum, or for sale.

In Company Meetings
To accompany wine bread and biscuits and cheese are often supplied. However, this is an unbalanced meal with no fruit or vegetables. Guests may wish to bring grapes, or to ask for vegetables and fruit to be supplied.

Providing Water
Another consideration is the cost of water. A wine tasting group might be looking for a venue which will provide unlimited supplies of tap water, or bottled water, and not refuse to serve tap water nor insisting on supplying and charging for bottled water. Organisers want to keep down the costs and ensure that sufficient food and wine is supplied to keep patrons sober.

Useful websites
drinkaware.co.uk
grapedeal.com
visitbritain.com
visitbritainshop.com
visittheusa.com
www.newzealand.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker

It's Raining? Is your umbrella broken? Have you lost it? What you do is ...

Hiking near Brasov, Romania.

After the rain stopped, it was sunny, but with puddles. 

Photo by Angela Lansbury.

I always pack a small folding umbrella on holiday. Small, so that I can take it everywhere, including in a smaller bag for an evening out in a restaurant. But small umbrellas are not windproof. 

My small umbrella quickly broke on the strong winds. So I borrowed a man's umbrella. I went walking, armed with a medium sized folding umbrella to hide behind when we went hiking in Romania, because the hiking trails in Romania had no toilets. You cannot carry a big umbrella whilst walking with the aid of two pointed sticks. 

It didn't rain all the time in Romania, on my hiking holiday. I was forced to go on the walk because the sun came out. But the rain left puddles, completely across the path in two or three places. One large puddle had already provided a home for yellow-bellied frogs. I'd never seen wild frogs that close. It was one of the highlights of the walk.

I saved my umbrella to get it repaired in London. But the repair was the price of two umbrellas.

James Smith & Son, Umbrella shop in London, England, selling and repairing umbrellas. Photo from Wikipedia.

Buying Umbrellas
I love buying umbrellas. I have an umbrella with a Union Jack on it. It frequently rains when I am on holiday. I once want to a country which claimed to have rain only five days a year, but they were the days I was there.

Here we are in Brasov in Romania in the Rain.

Umbrellas in the rain in Romania, photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

I thought these umbrellas were for shade from the sun in daytime. 

Here I am, in the rain, in Brasov, Romania, in the smallest street, with an umbrella protecting my mobile phone as I try to take photos in the rain.

These people are on a walking tour, in the rain. In Romania. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Problem - Repairs
Where can you get an umbrella repaired?

I thought there was an umbrella repair shop in London. At one point I thought it was closing down. Maybe they were just on holiday. They opened up again. What is the cost of repairing an umbrella? Somewhere, Glasgow I think, there's a recycling centre which teaches people to repair anything and everything and sells broken good once repaired to charity. 

French Umbrella Repair Shop There are videos on youtube for repair but not the bits I want to repair. Would the French shop fix umbrellas if you posted them? What's the cost of posting an umbrella? 

Singapore's Umbrellas
Singapore has two seasons. In rainy season it rains all day for at least three days solidly and the rain seems to bounce up the knee level. In the other season the sun is out in the mnonring to fool you, then hits you in the afternoon when you plan to go for a swim and often keeps going until time to go home when all the taxis have busy signs. Luckily there's Uber. The trick is to live near the underground stations. 

Singapore has a plan to build covered ways all over the island, from the stations along the main road and to the schools. Then the children won't get their boots and books wet.

 I always pick up broken, abandoned umbrellas. In Singapore, when you think, oh dear it's raining and I have no umbrella and you are nowhere near the shops, a couple of times I have retrieved a broken umbrella. 

I picked up one to get to the station. Once through the station barrier, I tried to fold the umbrella but it was jammed. I felt a right twit on the train. I was blocking the aisle. Somebody gave me a seat. I put it, still open, down by my feet with my bag inside it. 

I smuggled it into the house. Where to hide it? I hid it, still opened in the shower.

Eventually, somebody cut a spoke to let it down.

I like to keep pretty, broken umbrellas in the hope that I can re-use the fabric to replace the fabric on another umbrella which has rust along the fabric over the spokes. But it's hard to get the fabric off without tearing it. So I never do.

Wikihow sometimes has repair advice. But it's always how to replace the handle when your trouble is attaching the spokes, or replacing those bits that fit on the end of the spokes. 

Sometimes I can sew the fabric through the hole at the end of the spoke, but if the spoke has broken at the end I have not yet found a solution. I once thought of trying to attach a needle to the spoke with glue, but after I had glued my fingers to the spoke, then held the needle to the spoke for ten minutes, the needle still fell off, so that seemed too dangerous. 

Have you had any luck repairing umbrellas?

Useful Websites:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-43007051/i-fix-umbrellas-to-save-the-world

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-38473422/umbrella-sends-distress-alert-when-left-behind

https://www.james-smith.co.uk 
(Sells new umbrellas and repairs your old ones.)

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Also see
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/rain-in-singapore-good-and-bad.html

Please share links to this post and other on this blog which you like.

Mother's Day Weekends Away, Surprises, DIY Cards, Recycling

The late rooms sites are offering a night or weekend away. I'd check with Mum if she'd like a meal out or a night or weekend away before booking one.

Weekends Away - Paris
I met somebody who told me he'd arranged a surprise weekend in Paris but kept it secret, planning to surprise her on Saturday morning. His girlfriend thought he'd done nothing for her birthday so she accepted an offer to take the train up north to see her sister and disappeared on Friday!

So make it clear that certain times are blocked out. Just keep the destination a surprise.

If you need to depart in a hurry and want the packing done, tell Mum whether it's warm or cold, city or countryside. Another option for surprises is the quite lunch or dinner. You could have a member of the family from another city waiting at the restaurant to join you. The more the merrier.

Alternatively or in addition, after eating out, return home to a big party. Or a member of the family or a close friend who has flown in from overseas.

If travelling overseas or abroad, make sure mother has a passport with more than 6 months left on it, same for you. Some countries won't let you in with a passport which is expiring within less than six months or a year.

Have a happy day.

Holiday Wish List
By the way, why not make a public wish list of places you'd love to visit. Then family can group together merging funds, or spot a special offer and whisk you away to somewhere you actually want to visit.

I'm happy to go anywhere I haven't been before, and anywhere I have been to before - to see if it has changed.

Still on my unvisited wish list: Iceland; Estonia, Ukraine - Lemberg and Odessa - any part that's in peacetime at the time of travel, Latvia, Lithuania.

Dinner a deux
Offers are flooding into my email inbox. Senders range from gourmet Galvin for family friendly Z i z z i  (one z then two). The latter offers a mimosa and a competition.

Group Dinners
To take advantage os special offers requiring a minimum booking of a table of four, combine with a next door neighbour's family, especially if their family also includes a mother (grandmothers and aunties may also be mothers with children overseas or in another city). Make sure all the mothers are given cards or gifts.

Google Searches
Google searches for you:
Late rooms
Luxury for less
Mother's day (add your home location)
Mother's day (add mother's chosen day out or holiday location)
Your local supermarket offers
Chocolate, champagne,
Your mother's basket on eBay and Amazon.

Mother's Day Cards
Short of a card on the day, or can't afford one, at the shocking prices? Look in Poundland and cheap shops. Find an old family photo, mount it in a pice of card making four diagonal slits to hold the photo corners. Anything will do, for example, a baby photo of the children, an only child being born,  and 'thanks for 35 happy years'.

DIY Mothers Day Cards
Want to do better next year? Through the year note down all the things mother does and write a list of thanks on next year's card, or print a certificate:

Thanks to the world's best Mum, for
Babysitting
Baking Cakes
Being a passenger
Cooking Sunday lunch
Cleaning
DIY
Doing the accounts
Driving us to school
Flower Arranging
Gardening
Helping with the mortgage
Kisses and cuddles
Sewing on buttons
Shopping
Taking in Parcels
Teaching us ...
Tidying up
Visiting us in hospital
Washing
None of the above - teaching us to be self-reliant.

Positive Negatives (a name I just invented)
You could make a joke tick list crossing off things she doesn't do such as drinking, gambling and taking drugs.

If you don't have a mother but you have a stepmother or friend or neighbour who is like a mother you could do something similar.

Recycling
Save this years card for next year. If your mother likes recycling, recycle one year's card for the next, but add a new page for each year.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer