As parents, we aspire to give our children beautiful experiences, show them lovely things. Buy guess what? It doesn’t have to be through holidays or trips. Just the things you speak about in your everyday life. It’s your words that will linger on in them, long after you are gone.

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Last summer, I moved home to the UK for good, and one of the things I vowed I would do was visit my parents at least once every two weeks, given that they are the chief reason for my moving home.

But of course, it is also for a selfish reason: my parents treat me like a princess at home. Not only that, I live in arguably one of the sweetest seaside towns in southern England. We have the beach on our doorstep, the magical New Forest one one side of the county and the rolling South Downs on the other. Life at home is always good. And wherever I am in the world, I always yearn to go home to this little corner of England with his castles and turrets and cosy little pubs.

Last week, by Wednesday onwards, all the weather forecasters were predicting the hottest February weekend in recent years, and I longed to be home, by the beach, when the sun is out. Unfortunately, I had commitments last weekend that kept me in London.

“Oh, it will be foggy here, Jac,” my mum said when I phoned her to tell her that regretfully, I would not be able to be home on the hottest February weekend.

No, that’s not what the forecasters said, Ma.

“I can feel it in the air. The foghorns will be blowing early Saturday morning,” she declared.

“It’s going to be foggy this weekend in my hometown,” I told my friends. “My mother says so.”

“No way!” They laughed.

But it was.

My mother knows a lot about tides, stars, moon, flowers, weather and all things to do with the magical facet of this world. She was a fisherman’s daughter, and back in the day, she went out to sea with her brother in a little canoe from when she was around FOUR years old. I often think she is the embodiment of the elements, the way she is so attuned to the universe.

And so I phoned her, late at night, and asked, “Are the foghorns blowing across the Solent, Ma?”

“Oh yes. You’ll get the fog by the morning up in London,” she chuckled. And after a brief pause, she said softly, “But now, look at the twinkling lights, Jac. I bet they’re bright and clear.”

“Like a million stars, Ma,” I replied, feeling quite emotional.

And this was Canary Wharf (in Millwall Inner Docks, to be precise), where I now live ❤ My mother is never far from my heart wherever I am.