Appearances – and Hs – matter for Steven’s mum

Iwent to Manchester the other day, as I often do, to see my mother. I love my mum dearly - she's the only one I have after all - but she doesn't half know how to bring you crashing to earth.

Even at the age of 48 – me, not her, obviously - she will interrupt as I’m telling a story to correct me on some aspect of my speech, and she has no qualms about when this interruption will occur.

For instance, I sat in her lounge at the weekend telling her a traumatic tale involving the daughter of one my work colleagues.

“Yeah, it’s tragic mum,” I was saying.

“She’s just getting more and more ill and the doctors don’t know what’s wrong. They’re considering putting her into an induced coma but the hospital…”

“STEVEN!” she’ll shriek in an annoyed, high-pitched voice. “How many times do I have to tell you it’s h-ospital, not ’ospital. For the love of god pronounce your h’s.”

She’ll then pause and add, “sorry, what were you saying?”

I genuinely believe that if I’m lying in a hospital bed, terminally ill, unable to move a muscle, and I ask my mother to get me a ham sandwich, she will refuse to give it me unless I say the ‘h’ in ham.

The reason I was at my mum’s is because her 85-year-old sister – my aunty Kathleen – is flying in from Canada this week.

My mother, whose house on any given day is more spotless than an ‘ospital operating theatre, has upped her game even further and is cleaning every single inch of her bungalow.

Because she’s tidying ahead of her sister’s stay, she’d asked me – prior to my visit - if I could take "a small microwave” to the tip.

But when I arrived on Saturday, she suddenly changed this to, “well, seeing as you’re here, you may as well take a few other bits and bobs with you” – and 45 minutes later my my car boot and back seats were filled. She did, in fairness, come with me to the tip to help me unload it, but went in her own car as she was continuing on somewhere afterwards.

When we turned into the street the tip was on, we found ourselves in a lengthy queue. We waited half an hour – my mother in the car in front - moved forward approximately seven inches, then my mum, suddenly did a violent three-point turn and zoomed back past me shouting through her window that she couldn’t wait as she was late to see her friend.

I queued for a further 45 minutes and then unloaded all her rubbish myself.

And I guarantee that despite this act of kindness, next time I drop the ‘h’ in hospital she’ll still tell me off about it.

Honestly, I despair.