Dig out that posh dress you’ve been waiting to wear for ages and head off to the Ritz Hotel for afternoon tea and cakes. Your Mum will love the surprise and it will give you the opportunity to eat out in style.

You will be treated to a delightful afternoon tea consisting of a choice of sandwich; smoked salmon with lemon butter, cream cheese with mustard grain and roast ham are among the variety, freshly baked scones with jam and clotted cream, pastries, fresh cream cakes and a selection of teas or coffee.

It will cost £80 for two people – not bad for the Ritz and the gift will be delivered to your Mum on Mother’s Day as a gift voucher valid for one year. You will need to book six weeks in advance so make a reservation ASAP. It’s a shame you won’t be able to actually reserve a table on Mother’s Day but the gift voucher will be a nice surprise. You can purchase the gift voucher at lastminute.com.

If you want to get in the mood for St. Patrick’s Day coming up next weekend then there are some great music CD’s that will entertain you whilst you’re doing the housework or having your tea. I found The Ultimate St. Patrick’s Day Celebration at Amazon.co.uk for £8.99 and it consists of 14 popular Irish tunes that will have you dancing around your front room!

Well known favourites such as Danny Boy by Frank Parker and Rising of the Moon by The Clancy Brothers are also on the CD. Turn up the volume and have a great St. Patrick’s Day!

If you’re brave enough to express your love through words and you’re a little on the skint side then this could be the ideal present for you! You could send this gift as a birthday present or a thank you note and it would also make a lovely Mother’s Day present. You can write a whole essay (well up to 2000 characters) if you want or just a simple ‘Thank You Mum’. The text will be printed onto the letter in black italic writing and then rolled up like a scroll.

Your personal message will be delivered in a glass bottle filled with sand and shells to make it look like a real message in a bottle that has been floating on the sea. The bottle comes corked and neatly packaged in a brown and gold treasure chest. The gift will set you back £15 and you can purchase one from Find me a Gift.

This is quite an expensive gift but I think it’s something that many Mums’ would really enjoy and a chance for you to score some brownie points. The Orient Express is offering afternoon tea on board their British Pullman for £165 per person. If you cannot afford to go with your Mum, why not try and see if one of her friend’s children can do the same for their Mum. Also, if you book online you can get a 10% discount.

The luxurious train consists of 11 carriages, each one decorated in a different design with its own name and history. Passengers will be escorted through the English countryside and just be able to enjoy a relaxing Sunday afternoon with a lovely cup of tea. The train leaves Victoria station at approximately 3.15pm and arrives back at 6pm giving your Mum enough time to feel completely relaxed.

If you want to go one step further, there is a Mother’s Day lunch on the Northern Belle for £190, this includes a five course meal with champagne and departs from Birmingham International. Both trips are available on Sunday 18th March.

This Mother’s Day you could take your Mum to get totally pampered at the Celtic Manor Resort in South Wales. You will be blown away by the five star luxury treatments and surroundings and there is entertainment for the whole family even if you have young children. You can book you and your Mum in for some spa treatments, send Dad off to the golf course and let the little ones be entertained in the Hideaway Club. Then all meet for lunch in one of the hotel’s fine restaurants.

The Mother’s Day spa package costs £160 per person and consists of a Moisture Dew Facial, manicure or pedicure, lunch in The Olive Tree restaurant, afternoon tea and cake, a complimentary gift and use of saunas, steam rooms, the spa bath and pools. This may be a pricey pressie but go on – treat your Mum and yourself!

You can book the Mother’s Day package on the Celtic Manor Website.

Whether you’re of Irish heritage and passionately patriotic or you just want an excuse for a trip away to one of Europe’s prettiest cities, there’s always a good reason to visit Dublin for St Patrick’s Day.

There’s a surprising lack of decent St Patrick’s Day packages which include travel to Ireland, entrance to events and accommodation at good hotels, so we are going to help you source all the parts you would need for a great long weekend and you can put together the perfect holiday yourself.

If you are looking for a celebration with style, one of the best places to stay in Ireland is of course the Four Season’s hotel in Dublin. The smallest room will cost 295 euros per night in mid march if booked directly with the hotel. That’s only £200 pounds - not bad for one of the worlds most luxurious hotels! If you want to get a proper taste of the city, Dublin Discovery packages are also available from 345 euros per night which include full Irish breakfast, use of a car to tour the city, luxurious accommodation, late check out and cocktails in the essentially Irish bar, which stocks some of Irelands best beers. Visit the hotel website for more information.

If you pop down to Clinton Cards you’ll find a Tatty Teddy for every occasion and Mother’s Day is no exception. There are several different Tatty Teddies to choose from all with cute messages on their bellies like ‘Best Mum’, ’Mummy’ and ‘We Love You Mum’.

The great thing about these bears is that they’re thoughtful gifts and not too expensive. The bear to the left is 6 inches tall (the smaller range) and costs £8.99. There are smaller, cheaper ones if you’re on a strict budget and also a huge 24 inch bear costing £50 if you really want to splash out.

Some of the bears can be found on the Clinton Cards Website but I would probably head down to your local store to see if there’s even more variety.

Looking for a quirky gift for your favorite mum on mother’s day? Well why not adopt a hen? If your mum fancies herself as Barbara from The Good Life but doesn’t have the time to pick potatoes and pluck chickens herself this could be the perfect gift.

Adopting a hen involves selecting the breed and age of hen you would like to adopt, and then the people at Adopt a Hen will go and buy this hen for you and house it within their sanctuary where hens can roam in woodland amongst 30-50 other hens, saving it from a life in a battery farm. Costs vary depending on the hen but the average is about £25 for a year. For this money you get an information pack, an invitation to come and visit the farm at anytime and access to the hen web cam, so you can see your happy hen clucking away!

Extra options such as adopting a pair of chicks for a one off £25 fee, who will be reared in safety joining the hen farm when they are old enough, are available. The best thing about the service is that providing you don’t live too far from the hen sanctuaries you can get a package which includes tasty free range eggs from your happy hens. Yummy!

I love food that doesn’t just taste yummy but is fun to eat. The kind of thing I’m talking about is when you get to cook your own meats on a hot stone in front of you and the ‘design your own dessert’ trolleys that come round at the end of the meals at some restaurants. Fondue is a fun thing to eat but I’ve never really fancied the thought of dipping stuff into melting cheese. It’s just not very glamorous….chocolate on the other hand is perfect!

Chocolate fondue is about the most indulgent thing to eat that I can think of, especially when what you are dipping into it are cherries in kirsch and whole apricots soaked in Cointreau. The chocolate fondue kit from Hotel Chocolat includes just such delicious things and would be a perfect gift to spoil your mum with on mothers day. It costs £21 and includes free delivery if you don’t leave ordering it until the day before. Mind you I don’t think I could handle having it in my house for too long, so maybe i will buy it the day before!

Why not surprise your Mum when she opens her emails by sending a Mother’s Day eCard. There are many websites that offer this service free and you can add a personalised message at the bottom.

There are some great ecards at Blue Mountain; the one to the left is my personal favourite. Make sure you click on Mother’s Day UK on the left menu, in the US Mother’s Day isn’t until 13th May. Blue Mountain have eCards for all special occasions throughout the year.

ECards are animated or still images that are sent by email rather than by post and are becoming more and more popular each year. I think they get the message across better than a normal card and some of them are really funny animations so you can give the recipient a good old giggle.