Running along a Dorset coastal path this morning – Twixmas fog coaxing me dangerously close to not greeting in the New Year – I find myself ridiculously upbeat considering that I am dragging nearly two weeks’ of over-indulgence up a tricky incline and already regret entering Brighton Marathon 2025 in a rash moment of running amnesia.

I cannot take any credit for crafting my end of year jubilation, for it has been created from an embarrassment of wedding announcements from those I hold most dear – the summer engagement announcement of my Favourite Son (you can read it all again here : https://wordpress.com/post/thedragonflyjar.com/5433), swiftly followed by more engagement news from my gorgeous niece, and now we have the December good tidings of my Favourite Daughter (FD) who has just updated us on one of her best life decisions – saying yes to my Favourite Son- in-Law-to-Be. (FSLTB)

I always viewed him as perfect Son in Law material, but I have to say that my FSLTB surpassed himself by checking out his engagement intentions with me before running them past my daughter. I love this on so many levels:

• he had already done the traditional thing of asking FD’s father for her hand in marriage (her father was delighted for no dowry was mentioned in this negotiation and because he too believes this suitor more than worthy of his daughter’s hand.)
• he correctly predicts that I will be ‘flattered to bits’ to be asked for my opinion on this engagement even if the outcome is a ‘done deal’.
• he facilitates a discussion with me without either FD or myself picking up on his nerves, or questioning his unusual request to join the two of us on a girlie shopping trip to Zara.
• he does all this over 10 days before dazzling FD with the most beautiful engagement ring i.e. he actually trusts me to KEEP A SECRET from my daughter for 10 days, knowing that we speak every day and that I am a terrible liar.
• Oh, and before any of this, he has discussed his engagement plans with his parents and, regardless of any forthcoming nuptials, we have been overjoyed to accept an invite to join FSLTB’s family in their beautiful house in Suffolk before Christmas; the celebratory champagne glasses must have been primed weeks before I had even mentioned some Zara retail therapy to FD. I love this level of kindsight.

You have to honour the high risk stakes involved in FSLTB’s engagement machinations – not because there was any doubt that FD would say yes – but because there was no guarantee that he would be able to shake off my daughter and engineer a private conversation with me in Westfield ‘s Zara.

First FSLTB has to feign interest in a secluded rack of sequinned party wear to ensure that we can get away from some over-enthusiastic pre Christmas shoppers, and then he has to encourage FD to buy a waistcoat, knowing that there are two near identical ones in her wardrobe at home. His gamble pays off, FD goes off to pay and he casually asks, ‘Can I ask you for some advice?’. I anticipate FSLTB tapping into my well – established retail intel to ensure FD’s stocking is not disappointed on Christmas Day, but instead he asks for my daughter’s hand in marriage. Much to his embarrassment – and to the surprise of other shoppers – I am immediately jumping up and down, crying and laughing, punching the air and spraying sequins (literally and metaphorically). A crowd is gathering. I fear shoppers may have mistaken me for a retail influencer when in fact my future clearly lies in weddings; Mother of the Groom and Mother of the Bride – greedy I know, but then I do have the best children so everyone should have seen this coming.

‘Pull yourself together woman, she’s coming back,’ FSLTB snaps, applying virtual smelling salts to my maternal pride and proving that he is man enough to handle a Sixty-Something future Mother in Law in a busy shopping centre.

‘Mothership, why the tears?’ . FD has returned with the aforementioned waistcoat, buoyed by her discovery of the self-service facility, which explains the uncharacteristic, queue-dodging trajectory of return.

‘I always find this time of year emotional’, I reply. ‘By the way, do you think that I am too old for sequins?’

Fast forward ten days and I have managed to keep this engagement secret. When the couple video call to announce their happy news, I am too nervous to speak. I know they are having a mini break in the town where my mother used to live for this has been long-arranged, but for all I know FD could be calling me for a list of her grandmother’s favourite hostelries and I do not want to break trust at this late stage. I am strangely mono-syllabic when I answer my mobile and too nervous to realise that this is a video call. I am holding my phone to my ear so cannot see the gorgeous diamond that is being flashed across the screen; daughter and FSLTD are greeted by my inner ear drum rather than my beaming maternal glow.

For a rufty tufty mother of considerable years, I surprise myself with the level of love and happiness I feel about this engagement. I know that this will be the happiest of unions and later, when FD sends me a photo of the line of decorated Christmas trees outside my mum’s local church, I know that my mother will be blessing this news in the same way that she did for FS’s engagement earlier in the summer – she just won’t be quite as vocal when we go shopping for hats.

So I end the year running through fog and beaming from chubby cheek to chubby cheek. I can report that we have now met the Suffolk clan and discover that they are cut from the same silken cloth that we are when they ask us over dinner what strengths we could bring to a zombie apocalypse. We even bump into Ed Sheeran in the queue for some pre nuptial/pre- Christmas fish and chips in Southwold and FD is visibly relieved that I restrain myself and leave Ed to his salt ‘n’ vinegar without introducing my daughter and her fiance. Yet again, it turns out that I can keep a secret.

No doubt all this wedding planning will be a marathon not a sprint and my pledge to both my children is to keep on training – brain fog or no brain fog, incline or downhill; my published intention is to fulfil my Mother of the Groom/Bride duties to the superlative, in the same way as my secret intention is to bring sequins and a whopper of a wedding hat to any zombie apocalypse; mum’s the word.