Sunday 25 October 2015

Mother confuses Spain with France again.

Hello and welcome once again to another blog post! As some of you may know, Mother and I recently took a trip to Sitges for business at the Film Festival. As soon as our train pulled into the station, Mother hopped off and skipped down the road; "Darling! I love it here!"

I struggled to mirror the excitement at this precise moment; 

".... we've literally just left the station... we don't even know where we are... how do you know y-..."

"Darling, look at the narrow, hilly streets! It's so ME, darling! SO French!"

So, we begin our long walk to the hotel with our suitcases, along the promenade by the ocean. As we pass people, Mother turns to me and says; "they're all looking at us up and down..."

"Yes, I know - I wouldn't worry, it's probably just-..."

"No, darling! They're looking at us, making judgement, darling! That's good, it's a sign of upper class!"

Mother instantly feels at home and glides along.

We then pass a father at a cafe holding a baby at the exact moment his pram topples over. Mother flies at it, heroically, and catches the pram before the handles hit the ground. Her own suitcase has wheeled off down the hill. The father (a dashing, tanned gentleman) stands up to retrieve the pram from Mother's hands and thanks her.
Honestly, Mother will find any way, anytime, to interact with a potential suitor.

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On our second night, the light soon faded and it became evening, so we headed out for a small supper.  We found a little Italian rather close to where we were staying with lovely interiors and amazing food, as it turned out.

However, upon arrival, Mother tries to persuade me she is merely observing (not complaining) when she nearly keels over at the lighting. 

"Hmm..." she says, squinting, "this is lovely, darling, really but it's just FAR too bright in here. I like it more dimmed, you see."
"Yes, Mother. I know."

"Yes, well, all of these lights are not as warm as they ought to be. It's rather uncomfortable actually."

With this statement, Mother proceeds to delve into her handbag, retrieve a black leather pouch and pull out her Ray-bans.  She puts them on. Excellent. A few heads turn, whilst Mother purses her lips and attempts to read the menu.

"I'm not sure that's normal behaviour, Mother..."

"Well, darling. I shall ask the waiter to dim the lights!" she says, as she waves at the waiter (sunglasses still on).

The waiter approaches our table, ready to take our order, as Mother says; "hello, do you think you could turn the lights down? Or off?"

"Off, madam?"

"Well... it's just... it's very bright in here. Can you dim the lights? Or turn the ones over here off?"

"I don't think so, madam, I think they are all... just a moment, let me check for you madam..."

Off he pops, talking into his headset.

A few moments later, he returns with an apologetic explanation that the lights are all controlled by one single operator and therefore cannot be 'customised' to preference.

Mother accepts this with a smile (I know, odd. Sitges must have something in the air) and she proceeds to count the lights in the restaurant. Only, it's not the lights she is counting...

"51 plus 14 bulbs, darling! Look at all of these lights!"

I push the wine list towards Mother in an attempt to distract her.

After sharing a light but AMAZING meal (one of the best Italian meals I've ever had), Mother wants to know as much as possible about the chef. Naturally. So Mother calls over another waiter to interview him.

"So, where is the chef from? Italy, obviously but whereabouts? Because that was amazing!"

"Oh, thank you! Well, actually he is Spanish. Our chef is Spanish"

"No. I mean where is your chef from? He is not Spanish"

"Yes, I understand. He is Spanish, madam" the waiter replies, with a smile "he is from Argentina"

"He can't be... he is not Spanish! Spain cannot cook!"

I really thought Mother had offended the entire restaurant until the waiter replies; "Ah but madam, this is Catalunya!"

The conversation continues as Mother gets more and more confused as to how exactly the chef is not Italian. She honestly tries to persuade the waiter that the chef is Italian.

An hour later, Mother practically has the recipes for every item on the menu along with their origins.

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 A few nights into our stay and we are awoken at 3am by a howling group of British women returning to the hotel after one too many. Mother does not settle for improper hotel guests, of course, and aggressively jumps out of bed and hurries to the door. Flinging it open (with minimal clothing...) I hear her shouting at other human beings.  She is telling them off, like school children.

"Hello? Hello! Excuse me, are you British??"

A woman replies with a strong Northern accent; "...yeah...."

"Of course you are, for God's sake, it was perfectly pleasant before you all arrived!"

"eh?"

"Do you think you could have some respect for all of the other hotel guests, you're not the only ones staying here you know! We are trying to sleep!!!"

"riiiight, aww-keh. sorreh"

Mother returns to bed as I am hit with the realisation that, for the rest of the stay, Mother and I will be leaving the hotel together each morning and, therefore, these women will know I am associated with the lady who shouted at them, ruining their drunken splendour.

To make matters worse, the next evening Mother hears more squealing women in the corridor. It is about 8pm and we are getting ready for dinner when Mother decides to pre-warn these women. She whips open the door to find a gay gentleman (I think this is where the squealing was coming from) on the arm of another Northern hen-party woman.

" You're not thinking of coming in again at 3, are you?" Mother blurts out. There is no filter.

"What?"

"Last night, perhaps it was you who was making all the atrocious noise..."

"No, nope. Wasn't us." The woman replies.

"Well.... there are other guests here too!"

"Yeah, no. Hmm. Wasn't us."

Hearing this conversation from behind the door (I had zero time to hide in the bathroom so ran behind the door and tried to conceal my breathing) made me cringe and pray for it to be over. There was more than one awkward silence.

I decided to leave the room a few minutes before Mother was ready and wait for her outside the hotel.

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Disclaimer:

Mother did not spend the whole time complaining and shouting at strangers. In fact, for the majority of time, she was joyfully bouncing around the town, embracing the French patisseries; 

"everything is SO French, darling!!"

and enjoying multiple glasses of wine. We made friends on our travels and Mother has sowed her business seeds everywhere, which made the trip even more productive. 


xoxo

Friday 9 October 2015

In which Mother gets a mild intervention at breakfast



Mother and I also had each others company during breakfast every morning. We usually join the 'middle class' (Mother's description, not mine) downstairs in the main restaurant for breakfast. However, on our final morning, we went upstairs to the Executive Lounge to eat. To be honest, I did actually notice the better quality of the food (it's delicious everywhere... but if I were perpetually picky, you know). I also noticed the bottle of champagne and rapidly  realised that this was, of course, the main reason we were here.

Immediately, Mother heads for the champagne. As soon as she sits down she demands I get up and do similarly.

"Oh... no thank you, I don't actually want any champa---"

"NO DARLING! Not for YOU! For ME! Go and get another glass for me! I need two but I can't go and get another right now or they'll think I'm an alcoholic!! You have to do it."

It's 9am and I don't have the energy to argue.

As we are eating our high-quality breakfast, we both relish in our favourite pastime; people-watching. There really aren't very many people at all, perhaps five tables occupied. This is too much for Mother as she would prefer the entire dining area to herself. Apart from the butlers, whom may stand delicately in the corner until summoned.

There is one fairly old couple a few tables away and I look lovingly towards the gentlemen who has hoisted his beige trousers up to his neck. So cute, I love old people. There should be more of them. Less children; more OAPs please. Anyway, his wife is sitting across from him.

"Oh look!" Proclaims Mother pointing at the wife, "she's holding her knife and fork properly. That's unusual for someone in a blouse like that."

Excellent. Nearly choked on my Alpen.

At this point, a young, tall African-American woman walks in with a toddler. I instantly look at Mother...

"what is that?!?" Mother whisper-shouts at me. "Children in the Executive Lounge?! Surely that's not allowed?! WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON THIS IS A CHAOTIC MESS OH GOD IT'S A FREE FOR ALL OH MY GOD!"

At this point, Mother is on her fourth glass of champagne. I had tried to offer her a cup of tea, or juice (like the rest of the planet might choose for breakfast. Why do they even have champagne on offer up here?! I should have asked them to take it away before Mother saw it. I blame myself.)

She's found some strawberries too, now. One by one she plops them into her champagne, each one contributing to her glorified smile of satisfaction on her face.

I look up from my food and am graced with Mother's absolutely terrifying face. I have seen this before, many times and yet it still manages to frighten me. I notice it is not aimed at me (good)... instead her line of vision lands upon the small toddler (bad). I turn to look at the small child and see she is transfixed by Mother's face with a cheese slice hanging from her mouth. Mother is literally glaring at this child and I am unsure how long this has been going on. Her nostrils are flared, teeth gritted, eyes wide, fists clenched. Oh my God, she is glaring at an infant again.

I lost it a tiny bit here; "OH MY GOD STOP! EVERY TIME I LOOK UP YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING INAPPROPRIATE!" Honestly, it's like looking after a child of my own most of the time (all of the time).

With this slight intervention, I took charge and dragged Mother away from the child... and the potential fifth glass of champagne.

xoxo



Mother makes more friends... ?



Two minutes off the plane and we hit chaos. Britain. This country is suffering from some kind of warped mitosis. Mother decides now would be a great time to get our train tickets for the whole week (in theory, this is a good plan. In practice, however, we are faced with approximately 250 travellers and their suitcases waiting in line.)
Mother does not reconsider her plan. Instead she drags us to join the queue. 

The dreaded misfortune occurs when we are joining the mess of a 'queue' from one side at the precise moment 3 post-holidaying young women are joining from the other side. Breaking down the few seconds that this collision occurred, I can tell you the levels of 'awkward' and 'wanting to run away very quickly' increased rapidly. 

There is no way of knowing who owns the next place in the queue.

So I slow down a fraction, allowing the women to slide in ahead of us, whilst Mother speeds up, so as not to allow the women to slide in. Mother's head jolts up, her shoulders eject backwards and her lips purse. She's in the mode. I can already foresee what is about to happen and therefore remain several feet away from both Mother and Ibiza-girls. Hoping somebody else will want to join the queue between myself and them but I am unlucky; I am still within a few feet of them with no protection. 

The girls are not paying any attention whatsoever. Laughing away loudly as they pull their suitcases in front of Mother (who has, by now, marched ahead with the aim of almost touching the unsuspecting male traveller in front). As the girls' suitcases whiz around to 'their' place in the queue, Mother does similarly with her petite pink butterfly case; hauling it up and around the Ibiza cases to join Mother's side. 

The 3 girls all look at Mother.

Mother does not return the look, instead her eyes are closed and her nose is up. 

"Uhm... excuse me? This is a queue...?" Pipes up the leader of Ibiza-girls. 

"Indeed it is! I was here first. You pushed in." Mother retaliates with her eyes still closed.

The 3 girls look rather shocked. They are silently staring at Mother for the next 2 seconds before girl number 2 (with horrendously odd rust-coloured droopy harems gracing her possibly-sun-smacked legs) joins in; 

"Goddddddd, so much for holiday spirit..!" and scoffs. The other 2 also scoff. 

Mother scoffs back. She also tuts.

This is a Very British Problem.

'The Scoff' and 'The Tut'.

I am silently praying that Mother does not fight back with a quip about the trousers (she has been glaring at them since her eyes opened).

She doesn't. Instead, she looks at me.

Instantly, I whip my head around to look at... anything else. I pretend I am thoroughly transfixed by the announcement board.

"Honey. Honey! Darling... come here."

Nope. Not happening. I do not know who this lady is. I am not with her. I did not witness the disorder queue faf. I am gathering important information from the announcement board.

"Can you please come here now!"

Ugh. My eyes inadvertently meet hers and I am caught. I shake my head.

"We should buy the tickets together" She shouts, over Ibiza-girls.

I pretend to look at my phone and nod.

For the next ten minutes, Mother insists on having a conversation with me over the women! She has not grasped the idea that I am trying to disassociate myself.

Then at one point, she leans around the women and gestures with her hands whilst gritting her teeth, pointing at Ibiza-girls. She opens her mouth...

Oh God. Is she actually going to b*tch about them to me right now?! I mouth "wait!" and delicately slide past the girls whilst trying to catch their eye to sort of 'ask permission / apologise' but none of them are paying any attention. They are talking about last night's Mario and his abs.

I have now joined the Queen in the queue and jab her in the side each time she begins to have a moan about 'the stupid girls with their loopy pants'.

xoxo

Thursday 8 October 2015



QOTD: "There's a lot of chavs on this flight which means they won't put their phone on flight mode..."

Outbound journey friendships



Although much of our recent trip to the UK was spent doing separate things, there were a number of times in which I had the joy of Mother's company. Such as the flight. As soon as we boarded, I rushed off to the loo while Mother deliberated which seat she wanted and why she didn't want the one she was allocated. N.B. We were seated more or less in the middle of the plane, causing discomfort for Mother for numerous reasons; 

1) it takes too long to be served by the air stewards
2) she is equidistance from screaming children
3) she is close to the wing... and apparently people don't like this...
4) she is close to the emergency exit doors, meaning she may, at any time, be roped in to save lives
5) the plane might snap in half.

So, as I head back towards our seats, I notice Mother has already ambushed the female passenger on her right. I quietly approach and try to slip in unnoticed (I then realised that this is an impossibility. It bothers me greatly how, if sitting in the window seat, I have to majorly disrupt two passengers.) 

"Darling! This is FRANKI! We've just met!"

Obviously.

I politely smile and introduce myself before Mother whips up the conversation again. 

This is a horrible situation because once you begin a conversation with your fellow passenger on board a flight, it then determines the remainder of your journey. You cannot simply say after ten minutes; "right, well I've had enough chit chat, can we stop talking now please and sit in awkward silence, millimetres away from each other, for the next 2 hours?" 

No. You have to keep the conversation going. NIGHTMARE. I discovered this years ago and therefore very rarely strike up a conversation until I'm at least half an hour away from landing. Strategy, you see. Something Mother does not have during travel.

I silently thank God that I remembered my noise-cancelling headphones and get to work on my very important nap. Noise-cancelling headphones were slightly mismarketed. I can still hear Mother telling Franki her life story... occasionally catching parts of my name. Franki now probably knows my life story too.  

I, strategically (take note), 'wake up' about fifteen minutes before landing to the discovery that both Mother and Franki are laughing away with their little plastic cups of brandy. Personally, I do not care for spirits at 10am but each to their own.  

Disembarking, Mother and Franki part *sob sob - they are now obviously BFFs* and Mother gives me the 411 on Franki (in great detail, as usual). 

xoxo