Natasha Mac a'Bhaird

She embraced the whole pottery thing with this wild enthusiasm, making one bowl after another, then (because they were easy) dozens of ashtrays, even though no one in the family smokes.

vases and ashtrays

Last time I was looking for something in Sadie’s garage I found Mum’s old potter’s wheel, which she’d splashed out on at the height of her pottery craze and then forgotten all about.
Now, it seemed, Mum had decided that Being an Ordinary Mum was her new thing. Only Mum doesn’t do ordinary, so she was in fact taking it to extraordinary lengths.
We’d moved to Carrickbeg, where Mum grew up and where Sadie and Grandad still live, at the start of the summer. Mum had got a new job almost straight away, and she’d been really busy. Then she’d had a sudden attack of the guilts that the summer was nearly over and she hadn’t done any mother-daughter stuff with me. And the fact that Dad was working abroad and only came home for occasional visits seemed to make her feel she had to make it up to me by being twice as much fun. She persuaded her boss to give her the week off – Mum can be very persuasive. We’d gone on all sorts of day trips, to the beach, the museum, the cinema, and even on a bus tour of Dublin city. And of course there were the essential shopping trips too, where Mum bought a ton of new clothes for both of us (even though I have to wear a horrible grey uniform to my new school).

engrossed until the end

the very beginning.

When Mam nervously

When Mam nervously asked for the uniform for Sycamore Hill,

for the uniform for Sycamore Hill, her eyebrows had shot up.

She sounded as if she didn’t quite believe

into the fitting area. Clare had barely had time