My mother, Olive Tuffin, was an independent spirit. She died, aged 91, on a beautiful summer's day. It was the kind of day that in better times would have found her inspecting the results of the badgers' playtime, pottering in the greenhouse while one of the foxes slept in the compost heap, and feeding the tame seagull for which she regularly baked food. Then, she would have retreated under the battered sun umbrella to do another cryptic crossword.

Born in Leeds and educated at the city's Roundhay school, Olive trained as a teacher, met my father, Douglas, and moved with him to Bexhill, East Sussex, where both of them taught in local schools. After my father's death in 2004, my mother lived out her days in the same family house. Little, quick in mind and body, she was resilient throughout her life. Just six months ago she was still putting out the bins for the old lady down the road. "A stubborn old bird" was how one neighbour affectionately described her.

Naturally impatient, Olive was the quickest walker we knew. She fed the birds by flinging food from the back step, decorating the family car in the driveway with bacon rind and burnt toast. She suggested that her roses be pruned with a chainsaw because it was quicker that way. Artistic, creative, imaginative, resourceful, a maker of lists and wonderful teas, a lover of words and beautiful music, of labels and clingfilm and copious amounts of sellotape, she cherished her garden and birds and a cracking good thunderstorm.

Olive was always interested in other people and as illness brought the frustration of immobility, she became a good listener to the many visitors who sat on her sofa, feeling that she was still of some use to the world. Ironically, the steroids which kept her alive for 50 years were also responsible for her painful death, but not once did we hear her complain. In fact, her only concern was that everyone else was all right.

She is survived by her two children – me and my brother Brian – and five grandchildren.