Confessional....

I'm a bad mother. I destroyed whole galleries of my children's artwork over the years on the pretext that they were being kept in a file for posterity. Oh yes, I kept the odd one or two on the kitchen wall, to give the illusion that I was a good, caring mother, to convince the coffee-drinking contemporaries who came to visit with their off-spring. Every new offering was received with a, "That's lovely, darling," and with the merest sleight of hand, it would be loop-de-looped into the nearest bin.

So when I was left yesterday, unattended in my daughter's house for five hours, what was I to do? Sit on my hands? Like every good mother, I wanted to give my daughter a treat when she returned from a London appointment with our granddaughter. The hoover winked at me, and like a woman possessed, I gave the house a once-over. It's amazing how a problematic shoulder is anaesthetised by  altruistic valour. I whisked around the house, duster in hand, with glee, bordering on joy. It was then that I came upon a large glass plate containing an assortment of oddly-shaped pieces of plaster of paris. Closer inspection revealed them to be school-made fossils. To my recollection, they had been there for several weeks. Inspired, I thought, I will gather these lumpen mis-shapes, put them in an empty jam jar and stick them under the stairs. Nobody will notice, but this now looks so much better.
When everyone returned, there were no gasps of amazement at a radical transformation because the place looked very much as everyone expected to find it. I tell you, my work is of the highest order, and subtle with it. As the afternoon progressed, with my daughter back at the helm, I quietly collapsed in a heap in the living room with all four paws in the air.

The calm euphoria was broken by a wail from next door,
"Where's my grommet?"
Our grandson's grommet had worked its way out of his ear last week and was evidently, I soon discovered, a trophy.
"Oh Lord, I said, leaping up, "Where did you put it?"
"In the middle of my spider fossil which isn't here either!" Tragic face. His. And most likely mine.
This is Karma coming back big-time to bite me on the bum.
With no further ado, I plunged back into the dark recesses of the under stairs cupboard and produced the jam jar.
"It's so you can see your fossils clearly through the glass ( at the back of the cupboard) yet they are protected ( from visiting grandmothers). Let's see if your grommet is still here.."
I've never seen a grommet before, so didn't really know what I was looking for. But surely enough, it still remained (Thank God) nestled in the plaster spider fossil.
Safe as houses.

I am including a photograph so that no one reading this ever finds themselves in a similar position.
There's no stoppering altruism once it's been unleashed. Have I learnt a lesson? Maybe.

Let's call this spider, Wallace...

The proud owner of a grommet