I’m at my mum’s, taking a brief pit-stop off the Welsh end of the M4.

I’ve only popped in for a cup of coffee and a biscuit on my way home, but the traditional valleys’ hospitality doesn’t allow for such meagre profferings and I can see she’s not going to let me get up from the sofa until I’ve finished the tongue bap and eaten at least three of the Welsh cakes that she bought this morning.

Whereas in Scotland you’re reputedly greeted with “you’ll have had your tea …” when you drop in to see a relative or friend, in South Wales you’re lucky to escape without moving up at least one dress size. What I don’t know about tinned salmon sandwiches and fruit cake laced with black tea isn’t worth knowing, I can tell you.

I sit chomping on the third cake while my mum rummages round in a cupboard behind me to find the gifts she’s been storing up since she last saw me.

I found these in that cheap shop in Penarth, she says, waving two pairs of stockings in my direction. I know that you like tights, but they don’t do them any more.

I look at the packs, and know that if Nora Batty were in the room I would have to fight her for them.

They were, reveals my mum, an absolute bargain. She slips them into a large plastic bag.

Oh, and there are these, she exclaims. I couldn’t leave these there. A pound the lot.

She holds up some dark brown fabric which on closer inspection turns out to be two pillow cases, a single duvet cover and a single sheet.

A pound the lot, she says again, shaking her head.

I resist the urge to shake my head as well. I haven’t got a single bed, Mum, I say.

She looks a bit surprised. But a pound for the lot, she says, quite slowly so that I’ll get the point. OK, I say, and put them into the bag as well. I wonder idly what a single bed might cost. And where I’ll put it.

Oh, I know what else I’ve got, she says. I’ve got a strong feeling I might know, as well.

Sure enough, out of the cupboard come three or four brightly coloured blankets made up of knitted squares, with neat shell-like crocheted edging.

Really handy for our two cats, who enjoy sleeping on them. It’s just that she’s knitted around 30 for them already, and we ran out of cupboard space for them a year ago.

Now our house looks to the uninitiated visitor like a small museum celebrating the crafts of a small tribe of nimble-fingered shepherds.

Everywhere you go, tables and sofas and worktops are draped or stacked with fresh examples of stocking stitch and the fruits of the crocheting hook. Still, at least none of the surfaces get dusty, for they haven’t seen daylight since 2008.

Have the rest of the Welsh cakes, she says, as I stand up, and I think I’ll be lucky to get away with just one dress size. Oh, and have this … She rummages around in her handbag, and pulls out a wad of notes. These are the emblems of a lifetime of bargain buying and sensible saving and paying into a pension fund. I wish I’d stayed in that particular gene pool a bit longer.

You’ll need this for The Bridge, she says, stuffing about forty quid into my hand.

I’ve long stopped reminding her that you only have to pay to get into Wales, rather than to leave. I do remind her, though, that they levy a toll, rather than ask you to make a down-payment on the structure itself.

Have it anyway, she says. Bless her. What are you up to this afternoon, I ask, as I’m leaving. Oh, I think I’ll pop down the High Street and see what they’ve got, she smiles.