‘This is a bit rubbish,” my 16-year-old said as he handed me a Christmas present. I love it when that happens. It gives me the chance to be the cool maternal care-giver who doesn’t sweat the small stuff, as opposed to the critical and unforgiving mother you read about in novels. It was a coconut body spray from The Body Shop, and when I say “coconut”, I mean it smelled of nothing except coconut, and when I say “body spray”, I mean it was plainly labelled as a thing you were supposed to spray on yourself.
“That’s lovely, darling,” I said. “Now if I just find my peanut lip balm, I’ll smell like a delicious pad thai.”
