Oh Mother

Last night my Mum came in from watering the garden very angry and upset. She explained that someone had stolen our Monkeypuzzle tree.
Now Monkeypuzzle's are notoriously slow growing, so even though we've had the tree for at least 10 years it is still only about 4 foot tall, if that, so it was feasible someone could carry it off. However it is incredibly prickly and situated up our drive right near our house, meaning someone would have had to come up to our door, seen the tree, then come back at night with protective gloves, dug it up and carried it off. So you can understand why i was a bit skeptical. However my mother was absolutely adamant, claiming that you could see the disturbed patch of earth where it once was. I still didn't believe her, so i went out to see for myself. I wasn't absolutely sure where it had been before (don't really pay too much attention to it) but new whereabouts it had been so checked and sure enough there was a bare patch of earth that looked like it had recently been turned. So i figured she was right and came back in without investigating thoroughly. We were both a bit sad and i was very confused. I mean who steals a tree? (although have since found out that someone stole a shrub from    garden once)

Anyway if you follow me you may have seen that i posted about it on twitter and my facebook as i thought it was rather amusing.
Then this morning my Mum told me sheepishly that it was actually still in our garden, it had just been hidden by some overgrown Box leaves.

This would only be vaguely amusing, however this is not the first time my Mum has claimed something of hers has been stolen.

Years ago we were on holiday and went to the cinema. My Mum had worn one of her favourite berets out and realised after we left the cinema that she no longer had it. Having sworn she had it in the cinema she decided to go back and had us all and several Usherettes searching for it. Nothing turned up. So we all checked all in our car but,finding nothing, my Mum decided (she was deadly serious) that someone had broken into our car and stolen her hat. Anyway she was very sad for ages and we all felt bad for her, not believing a thief would steal a beret and nothing else but none the less feeling sorry she had lost it.
Then she went very quiet and, after a while, told us, in a very small voice, that she had found it. It was in her handbag the whole time.

And, not related to her claiming people have stolen her stuff but still an amusing story involving my Mum's oddness:
Once my Mum was given as a gift a novelty 'fully functioning chocolate teapot'. Now, i'm sure it will be clear to anyone reading this that the idea of this present is a joke, as obviously you cannot use chocolate as a teapot (in fact there's that saying along the same vein 'as useful as a chocolate fireguard'). However my Mum was determined to use it and make a chocolate imbued tea. I warned her repeatedly that it wouldn't work but she swore adamantly that it had to work because it said it was 'fully functioning' on the box (i told her that that was just part of the gag but she did not listen). So eventually i gave up trying to tell her and just watched the mayhem unfold.
She shoved a teabag into the teapot (it was miniature which you'd think would be another clue that it wouldn't work...), poured in boiling water and stood back. For a few seconds she was triumphant, laughing at my dismissal of the brilliant new invention but then suddenly it imploded, covering the table in hot water and melting slightly tea flavoured chocolate. Mum was silent. I was smug.