‘Would you like this almost-full bottle of floor cleaner?” my mother asks. She waves it under my nose and I see it is for wooden floors. “I don’t have wooden floors, Mum.” “No, neither do I,” she says, rather disappointed. “Well, if you don’t want it, I shall put it in the bin.” This is a test, because she knows we both hate being wasteful. “OK, OK, I’ll take it and find someone with wooden floors.”
This cycle happens every time I go to see my parents. It starts almost the minute I arrive, with a pile of things my mother has been saving up. Last time, it was a stack of 90s cotton jumpers, and there is usually some old tool she has found in a drawer. As the visit goes on, the gift-giving is ramped up; every time she leaves the room, she returns with some new object. She has always been generous – no visitor has ever left without produce from the garden, fresh eggs, a bunch of flowers. But recently it has taken a different tack.
