Return of the Mummy(care)

Mothercare opened its first Australian store in Chadstone on Friday. http://www.mothercare.com.au/

I went there on Saturday and if I’d known the sex of the unborn ‘Celly’, would have had a bit of a spend-up. Most of the clothes were very gender specific.
It was nice to talk to the staff in English. The last two Mothercares I was in were in Poland and the Czech Republic. Lots of miming and pointing but even more being ignored or avoided.

When Mere and Hil were kids our Mothercare shopping was via the eagerly awaited catalogue which arrived every season. We had enormous pleasure selecting stuff, much of which we could have found suitable substitutes for in Adelaide. But this was English baby lotion! European bibs (or feeders). Stylish, sophisticated nappy pins. So cool. Yes, it’s true. I really did import safety pins from the other side of the world.

We’d wait three months for the parcel to be shipped. Sometimes it would be opened by Customs and I’d have to pay duty. Other times our contraband simply arrived unscathed and unsniffed. Bonus!

At first the products were only for under five-year-olds but just as Mere was nearing her fifth birthday the catalogue arrived with “And now for children up to ten” emblazoned across its cover. Praise the Lord! Hil was only eighteen months old so another eight and a half glorious years of Mothercaring lay ahead.

But I do not remember ordering anything after we were banished to the Latrobe Valley. Who cared what you wore in that god-forsaken hellhole? Better not to look too swish anyway.

But now I have a new catalogue, picked up in store. It’s been thirty years but I’m back.