Mothers' Day

As I usually do on Mothers' Day, I took some goodies over to Jenny's place for lunch. It was a small occasion. Those present were only Jenny, our son Joe, myself and Nanna (Jenny's mother). I think Jenny was a bit disappointed that neither of her daughters came over. She did however go over to her son Paul's place later in the afternoon -- presumably for afternoon tea.

I bought some Kingaroy double cream brie for the feast which turned out to be particularly good and some double-smoked Champagne ham also went down well. Jenny provided Pavlova for dessert. Pavlova is a great Australian favourite and this one was one of the best.

I had a fairly long chat with my son Joe after lunch. We discussed his mathematics studies (he is now in 3rd year) and religion, among other things. I was pleased that he has decided to go straight through to his Ph.D. at UQ. I was however surprised that, at a very large university, he is one of only a handful of students who are concentrating exclusively on mathematics. Given that there is a need for mathematicians in all sorts of places, he should always be in demand.

I am still mildly surprised to have a mathematician for a son. Joe is eerily like me in all sorts of ways but mathematics was always my least favourite subject -- though I did teach statistics at university level at one stage.

Like me, Joe still has an interest in religion but his beliefs seem to be minimal. We mainly discussed church history.