MOTHER'S Day won't go by unnoticed on the Internet this Sunday. Whether you're a mum looking for some fun or a son or daughter looking for a gift, the Internet can help you out for Mother's Day.

If you are a mum looking for the chance to chat to other mothers or get some useful advice or information, then the parenting website www.ukparents.co.uk is a great place to start. This award-winning Newcastle-based website has become so popular with mums who like to chat that it even hosted an online hen-night recently.

The site also offers more than 100 discussion forums and a coffee mornings network to get people in contact off-line, as well as on.

But if it's gifts you are after, then you obviously have a whole world to go at online, although delivery times will be important if you are still looking.

Some of the more unusual offers can be found with delivery across the UK such as the customised chocolates and sweet packages at www.send-a-sweet.com.

And if you've left things right to the last minute, the online florist www.flowergram.co.uk offers same day delivery in the UK for orders placed before midday. It also states Mother's Day gifts will be delivered on Saturday or Sunday.

Further afield, the Americans have a rather different approach to Mother's Day. While in Britain we mark Mothering Sunday (and have done since the 17th Century) on the fourth Sunday in Lent, a piece in the Houston Chronicle interactive tells how a woman called Anna Jarvis campaigned for the Stateside holiday as a way of remembering her own mother, following her death in 1905.

The article at http://www.chron.com/content/interactive/special/holidays/97/mom/history.html also tells of Ms Jarvis's disappointment at how commercial the day eventually became. "I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit," she says.

Published: Thursday, March 22.