Happy Mothers Day (UK)!

Guys,

this is a post that's not about the crafty endeavours of yours truly. In fact, it has no crafts, success or fail, in it whatsoever.
It is about my Mom, and I would like you to get to know her through the awesome pictures she takes.
I know that most bloggers and blog readers appreciate beautiful pictures. I also know that many pictures we get to admire on our favourite blogs go through some kind of post- processing, often wonderfully done. Most of the pictures on my blog are at least cropped, and more often than not they go through some sort of enhancement, even though they are still amateurish in most cases.

My Mum, as far as I know, has no photo- enhancing software at her disposal, and I truthfully doubt she even knows how to crop a picture. But she seems to have "the magic eye". She sees things, and it is like the camera turns into an extension of her eyes. *blink*, and the magic is done.For me trying to photograph, it's more like *blink* and the magic is gone!

I would like to show you some of her pictures that make me want to laugh, cry, embrace the world and believe that there might be some good left in the world. They can all be found on her Flickr, if you want, I'll share the link.

Now... meet the incredible woman I am proud to call my Mum and see the world through her eyes.

Years and years and years ago I requested that she should please only send greeting cards from her holidays that feature some sort of critter. You know, not your boring old "sooo cute highstreet" shot, wish you were here and whatnot. She has not let me down ONCE after that. In fact, there was one occasion where she did not send a card at all because she could not find one with any kind of critter on it.
She sends me parcels with home made chocolate pralines and my favourite ketchup and crisps (I can't get that stuff in England, so she spends stupid amounts of money on postage to make sure her offspring has something to spice up her sandwich with) and (true darn story!) has kept a piece of puff pastry in the shape of a frog that adorned a meal The Man made her on one of her visits in Leeds.
When I was a kid and on holiday with my grandparents, she would send me letters with the pawprints of her pets stamped in lipstick (how she got the cat to do it I still do not know) and one year I received a full carriage horse- headcollar as a christmas gift. We passed her off as my sister to my first boyfriend and  laughed for years afterwards. She got bowel cancer, survived and still contemplates tattooing a zipper over the scar. Heck, she had herself tattooed at the same time as me more than ten years ago! She paints on silk and buys the students of the university she works at little gifts- because she can. She never wears the socks I get her because they are kept for special occasions...?! Her kitchen counter is packed with stuffed animals, all of them little gifts from me and Her Man, and she still lights candles for my Rainbow Cat Penny.

Her name is Marion, she's my Mum and when I grow up, I want to be just like her.