Bright lights, big city

Ok, so London was not so much “sex and the city” as “chaos in the capital”.
Me, my brother, his fiancé, my mum and I all set off for the station on Saturday morning. My mum had no idea where she was going and even my dad had managed to not drop us in it. (I must just point out here that my dad had decided to drive us all to the station in that fluorescent roadworkers outfit so there was no chance for mum to have a romantic, “brief encounter” style clinch at the station as Dad looked like he was just off to either wrestle with some cones or sweep the station platform.)
We boarded the train and mum had no idea we had booked her into first class. I would have enjoyed it more had I not realised I had left my favourite (and not to mention expensive) brolly in the station café and now only had my emergency handbag brolly which had one broken spoke and didn’t work properly.
We had brought some champagne, with us which we swiftly quaffed, despite it only being 9am. (My mum is a terrible influence – it was her that was eager to crack it open).
My brother kept videoing us the whole way down which was a little wearing after the first hour and so unfortunately my mum’s birthday video is now peppered with a few expletives; you see, it was not entirely necessary for my brother to try and video me when I had to phone his fiancé to say that I had somehow locked myself in the toilet as it was such a new-fangled contraption and I knew she had fathomed it out earlier. My mother is now the proud owner of a short film in which I emerge swearing and sweating from the train toilets and seemingly attack the videographer who is laughing hysterically.
When we arrived in London it was absolutely lashing it down. It was like comedy rain; this was not helped by my brolly which looked as if I’d just fished it out of a bin. Luckily, after navigating the tube (which is not easy when your mother actually thinks that an “oyster card” is a shellfish and can’t understand why you would insert that into a machine) we arrived at Victoria and found the hotel.
We stayed at the Grosvenor on Buckingham Palace Road and it was actually very nice. It was a bit dated but very grand. In fact, my brother was a bit overawed by it and said, as idle chit chat (and from behind the camcorder) to the receptionist, “It’s much nicer than the Travelodge isn’t it!” His fiancé nearly died of embarrassment.
We were shown to our rooms and Mum and I had a gorgeous suite (well, except for the bright green bathroom).
We cracked open some more champagne and settled down to have a bit of a rest. (It’s hard work lugging all your bags, a sixty year old disorientated and slightly squiffy mother and your demented camera crazed brother halfway across the capital)
Anyway, my brother was still videoing and started to interview Mum about how she felt about her surprise so far. Mum was sitting on the bed and raised her glass, leant back on the bedhead and began to speak but promptly disappeared from view. Unfortunately for mum, the bed was on castors and as she leant back on the wall, the bed shot forward and she concertinad up like an old accordion and disappeared down the back of the bed. This rendered me completely helpless with laughter and I had champagne actually coming out of my nostrils. My brother didn’t help either as he was busy capturing the whole thing on video and so my poor mother was left to climb up, rather dishevelled from behind the bed completely unaided. It took her three attempts to get out as on the first she bashed her head on the wall lamp, on the second the mattress flicked up and slid down on top of her, trapping her near the wardrobe and she had to muster all of her champagne induced strength to remove the mattress and return from beneath the bed.

After we had managed to almost drown ourselves in champagne, we set off for a bit of sightseeing. Now, I’m all for a bit of a tramp round in the fresh air but not when you are ankle deep in lashing rain and are struggling to stay dry with an umbrella that keeps collapsing.
We went to Buckingham Palace and I took a few photos of Mum outside. We then walked into town and past a huge display of Scots Guards. Now, I’m not sure if this is normal, but there was also a Scots Guard band playing and there was a midget playing the bass drum! I was almost on the floor laughing as this tiny person dragged round this enormous drum. In fact, I am captured on my brother’s video in tears of laughter when I actually realised that this tiny person was not only carrying the biggest instrument but was also a woman (I had been momentarily confused as they also had a moustache). My mum was rather uncharitable as she thought that coming to see a moustached drumming midget woman was her birthday treat. Luckily for her it wasn’t and we had much more planned for her.
By this time the rain was absolutely awful and even the midget’s bass drum was sounding muffled by the downpour so we dashed across the Thames and into Wagamamas where we introduced Mum to noodles and Thai Green Curry. She was loving it until the little boy that was next to her spilt his water into his dinner and all his watery prawn sauce ran over mum’s trousers. Only my mum could be ambushed by a fishy water throwing toddler in a nice restaurant. His mother was very apologetic but my poor mum spent the rest of the day rather more fragrantly than she intended.
After lunch we had another walk around some of the sights and I began to regret wearing heels. I was getting blisters the size of small coins all over my feet but had to grin and bear it as my mum had warned me that my footwear was totally inappropriate. (But I was in the capital of fashion and was not about to wear flippin trainers!)
Just when I thought someone had replaced my shoes with razor blades, we arrived at the theatre to see “Hairspray”. It was really excellent although my brother fell fast asleep all the way through it (at least it meant he turned that damn video off for a few minutes).
My mum loved it and was up and dancing and singing in the aisles, which would have been fabulous had she not been the only one in the whole place doing it. (Note to self, do not feed mother champagne before brunch)
We then went for a fab meal afterwards in a really nice restaurant and then went for cocktails in an equally cool bar. There’s something rather unnerving about watching your mother order retro 70s cocktails and flirting outrageously with a gay Croatian waiter.
Mum necked her cocktails like they were going out of fashion (hmmm, actually I think they were completely out of fashion – who on earth orders “Harvey Wallbangers” anymore or anything at all containing bloody Galliano, urgh!)
Eventually I got my mum onto some more modern cocktails and she was soon working her way through my shortlist of essential cocktails – I like to pass on my wisdom!
My brother was busy videoing the whole thing (of course) so there’s lots of rather unfortunate footage of my mum downing lurid cocktails and my brother’s fiancé taking off her moon boots (she had cold feet when we set off but after 8 hours of wandering round the capital her feet were steaming) oh, and me beginning to slur my words and shouting “can anyone see any bankers? I want a banker” (Again, remind me why I’m single…)
We eventually ended up back at the hotel and we wobbled in to find that the hotel had left a huge plate of fresh exotic fruits in the room for Mum with a card that said “Enjoy your Grosvenor guest experience”. This rendered my brother’s fiancé helpless with laughter and she just kept repeating “Now, are you having a guest experience? Are you enjoying your guest experience? Tell us the details of your guest experience!” My mum was in the loo at this point, in the delightful bright green bathroom and was shouting that the “Swedish Honey cocktail had gone right through her”. Delightful.
Whilst she was in there, my brother’s fiancé and I tucked into Mum’s fruit platter. By the time she came out, we had devoured an entire carved pineapple and my brother was spitting half chewed mango into the bin. (He thought it was pineapple and hates mangoes).
My mum declared the scene in front of her was “bloody charming” and was annoyed that her carved pineapple (which resembled a handbag) had been eaten so much that there was “only the strap left”. This didn’t stop her devouring it though so we watched a video last night which had me completely wasted and slumped in a hotel chair with blisters all over my feet, my brother’s fiancé in hysterics about “guest experiences” with the sweatiest moon-boot feet in Europe and my mum almost completely annihilated but chewing on the core of a pineapple with my brother shouting “Mum, you’re not meant to eat the bloody strap!”
It was an interesting first day…
Will write about what happened on Sunday later today or first thing tomorrow. I also need to write about that flippin nightmare in the conservatory – it’s still making me shudder. Yuck.
Anyway, lots of love in the meantime.

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