My mother’s best advice: you’re allowed to enjoy nice things

My mum’s best advice was “You’re allowed to enjoy nice things.” Both elements – the nice things and being allowed them – mattered. She believed in the restorative power of a treat: solo breakfasts most weeks (a bacon muffin and a cup of coffee in the cosseted calm of Bettys Tea Rooms), ordering chips at the slightest provocation, staying in chic hotels she had a pre-internet gift for ferreting out, and being coaxed by department store salesladies into buying expensive unguents.

She was even keener on treating others. During my teens and early 20s, when I was ill and unhappy in my body, she took me for lavish lunches, booked me massages and accompanied me on spa trips. I recently found a note she had sent me when I was slogging, lonely and sad through my finals, which had obviously come with some cash: “Buy yourself something frivolous darling,” it read.

“A nice nail polish?” That might make her sound like a princess, but she was anything but.

mother, advice, self-care, treats, bettys, bacon muffin, spa trips, massages, department stores, nail polish