Mothers Day

My mother is genuinely amazing, I know a lot of people say that about their mothers but I really mean it. She's not perfect, but then again who is? But you could never say that she did anything less than try her very best for me and my sister.

Me, mum and my sister in the States in November

She's one of, if not the, top name in her field and she has worked damn hard to get there. She flies all over the world, ten's of thousands of miles a year, but rarely ever gets to see more of anywhere than a hotel and an airport. She's not paid as much as she should be (in other words, less than many of her colleagues at the same or lower levels), which isn't to say she isn't paid well – far from it, but she earns every single penny of her pay.

Mum and me at my Graduation

My mum works in Fire, the same as I do, though her work focuses around testing and certification while mine is synthesis and development for now. She is involved in writing/revising a lot of the fire testing standards in use today, though mainly she is on the IMO standards committee ie. she writes the marine fire safety test standards more than anyway of the others and the company she works for carries out a lot of testing to ensure that products will pass certain set regulations for use as well as saying what 'grade' they pass at. I won't get into the specifics too much, it's probably only interesting to me, but for example something being used on a ship would need to pass at a higher standard than something which is only used in say, barns, because it's harder to escape from a ship. They also go to factories and do regular inspections to make sure than the stuff is being manufactured in the way that they said it was and in the same way that it was when the product was tested. That and meetings are the reason she travels so much. In the past she also did work on investigating major fires (I think she did work on the Bradford City Stadium Fire, and she did some work on the Stardust nightclub fire) and has helped consult on movies (Raiders of the Lost Ark and if I remember correctly Empire Strikes Back. Definitley one of the Star Wars. She had lunch with Speilberg and I believe Lucas. She's met GODDAMN HARRISON FORD. WHEN HE WAS SUPER HOT. My mum is cooler than I am).

at my sister's graduation

She's a big Trekkie, she still fancies Captain Jean Luc Picard and I grew up watched TNG and Voyager with her. And we watched Dr Who together, still do. We still go to the cinema together to watch the Trek films, and the superhero and Tolkein ones. My mum got me watching all the great oldies when I was little, I grew up on Ray Harryhausen special effects (the original Clash of the Titans is still the best), Labyrinth, Legend and the Princess Bride. We watched Noddy, Postman Pat, Paddington Bear and Trumpton when I was very little. Mum shaped my interests more than I will ever really know.

My mum is the best

Sometimes she's not the greatest at showing us how proud she is of every little thing we do, but she is the best when it counts and she has always been there for us no matter what. My mum is the greatest.