A Mother's Day Excerpt from Bringing Home The Birkin

"I needed help. I was going to handle this like a man. I called my mother.

Lucky for me, my mother was not the normal kind of mom. She wasn't going to freak out at the idea of her firstborn stranded in a foreign country without any way to earn an honest buck. No, my mother had unflappable poise and a matter-of-fact approach to dilemmas.

People sometimes remarked on the resemblance she bore to the actress Tyne Daly, from that old cop show Cagney and Lacey. And, like Lacey, my mother never missed a trick - and could detect a lie a mile off. Now, this may not sound comforting (and when I'd missed curfew at sixteen it sure wasn't), but at times like this it was exactly what the doctor ordered.

I wanted some down to earth advice, not someone who would reinforce my panic. And as always, she came through, cool as a cucumber."

For all the cool cucumber's out there... Happy Mothers Day!