Looking for a lost African lady

For those of you who haven't read the previous Italy post... I strongly advise you do! It's alright, this one will still be here afterwards.

For those of you who did read the previous post; welcome back! I'm sure you're all wondering what happened to Mother's sausage-feet after disembarking from the plane. Well, I imagine by now that you all regard me as the caretaker of Mother - an accurate assumption indeed. Upon arriving at the baggage claim, I suggest that Mother opens her suitcase and changes out of Ke$ha's shoes and into some appropriate, tourist shoes. Anything would be better, really.

"Okay darling. I don't remember what I packed though...." Mother looks a little sheepish.

"Right. Well, let's have a look" - I say, as Mother releases the tight string encasing the swollen cankles - "Flip flops might be a wise choice. Give your feet a bit of freedom. Where are they?" 

I am raiding her suitcase (sweeping aside the multiple kaftans and Hawaiian-print sarongs).

Right.  I have practically emptied her suitcase on the floor now. Only two shoes are among the pile of colourful clothing.

"What are these, Mother?" I say, holding up a seemingly brand new pair of Barbie-pink, suede heels with about 80 large pearls encrusted all over the top. Fantastic.

Mother pulls out her justifications; "Well, what on earth did you think I was going to walk around in? I mean, we are in two of the most romantic cities, darling! I highly doubt a handsome sailor will approach me if I'm in sloppy flip-flops, will he?!"

We will have to go shopping.

Upon arrival at our hotel in Venice, Mother begins her ritual. She is completely incapable of giving up DIY and therefore the hotel room suffers a bit of 'feng shui'. The window has been tied up, strategically, with a plastic bag - so as to allow the correct amount of fresh air and city noise in. Mother has also installed a fire alarm within approximately 4 minutes of arriving.  Interestingly, Mother also 'fixed' the kettle (by wedging a piece of paper in the lid to keep it down), however Mother had less than zero interest in tea or coffee...

"Wine, darling!! Let's go and find somewhere to have some wine!"

"Um - what about.... food?" I am concerned that the concept of 'dinner' has flown out of the (strategically-sized-gap) window.

After a good TripAdvisor hunt for a great pasta place, Mother and I topple into a typical Italian bistro and are shown  to our seat. Only to be re-seated to a 'better' table upon Mother's firm request, of course. Wine is instantly ordered and arrives within seconds, to Mother's delight! Down it goes! ..... Oh. Oh, dear. No it doesn't, actually. In fact, it nearly comes back up in a very dramatic fashion.

"OH!!!! Oh, no! No no no no no no no ..... darling, it's .... it's cold!" Mother looks at her glass of wine as if it were poison. In fact, she can barely hold it. She puts it down and clasps her hands together to reheat them.

"Is it? It looks pretty normal to me..."

Mother ignores me and calls over the (lovely) waiter, who immediately asks what's wrong.

"In England, darling, we don't drink cold wine. Sweetie. Darling." Mother tries to be some form of 'nice' but it proves difficult. You know, due to the shock of the 'cold wine'.

"Oh really? Ah - ha! Here we have it in Italy this temperature when it is the summer"

"Mmmm." Mother, again, nods sympathetically. "Yes. Well, I'm English actually..."

Duh.

Mother continues; "Is it possible, sweetie, to find a warm wine? Or... warmer? Please, darling? What's your name?"

Oh here we go. Mother establishes a very intense relationship with every waiter in every restaurant/cafe/take away etc. This is no exception. In fact, as we are in Italy, the effort Mother puts into relationship-building is far stronger.

Speaking of relationships and non-existent boundaries, I must also tell you about our departure from Italy. Don't worry - I have vlogged every day of the Italian trip on my YouTube channel, so be sure to keep your eyes on that.

Regardless of the successful shoe-buying in Italy, Mother still opted for her Ke$ha-cages as footwear for the flight home. I am not sure why she doesn't remember the absolute fiasco on the outbound flight revolving around these shoes but there we go.  Another downfall of these ridiculous shoes is that the tassel that ties up does not do a very good job of remaining tied (as you may recall from the previous blog post) and therefore, during the short security check, they untied themselves. I say 'short' security check... I mean short for me. It is a lengthy process for Mother, who refuses to travel with minimal jewellery. Instead, she prefers to be scanned by an airport security guard as the alarm goes off. The people at security ask her to remove her bangles but Mother insists they are 'stuck on forever'. So personal scanning is inevitable. Mother is released, eventually, and slides over to me, signalling to her untied tassels grazing the floor.

"I need to re-tie these, hold on, darling" Mother spins around in order to locate a seat to perch on.

I too look but - as this is security at a rather small airport - there is no seating available.

"There'll be some through here, in Duty Free, come on" I say, starting to move on.

"No, wait, darling. I'll just sit here." Mother signals to a large and in-charge black leather spinny-chair that has just this second been vacated by the head security guard, as he carries his guns on his hip. There is a very important machine by this chair and it is clearly forbidden to be anywhere near it unless you are an authorized member of airport security. This does not phase Mother (despite my best efforts to dissuade her) and she immediately plonks down. I am on edge for the duration of the shoe-lace-tying, hoping desperately not to be arrested. By contrast, Mother reclines and spins around happily before eventually leaving the area.

Now, we are waiting at the gate. Ready to board the plane. Mother does her usual scan so as to locate who she would most like to be seated next to. She selects approximately seven inappropriately-aged 'men'. The boarding process seems to be taking quite a while (ie nobody is moving and we are supposed to be taking off in 4 minutes...) As we are waiting, Mother sighs in a majestic, know-it-all way and says;

"OH! I see why we're running late - we are waiting for somebody! See, we're waiting for Ultimah Chumata, see? That name up on the screen, flashing, darling? They're calling for her."

I look up and see the words "Ultima Chiamata".

"She must be African. Oh, poor lady! She's going to miss this plane if she doesn't hurry up, I wonder where she is...." Mother frantically looks around for this poor, late African woman."

There is no African lady, speedily jogging towards the gate. In fact, she doesn't exist, considering Ultima Chiamata is Italian for 'Last Call'.

We finally board. Thank goodness, no more disasters. Oh no... wait. I hear Mother behind me as we head onto the plane. She seems to be huffing and puffing to someone.

"God! I was here first! NO, no - wait! I was here first!!!"


Mother is cross. Her arms are flailed to the side in a bodyguard style so as not to allow this imbecile to jump the queue.


As I turn around, I see who the imbecile is. Oh, it's the pilot. He is trying desperately to slide past Mother and into the cockpit. Thankfully, Mother had no neighbour-passenger on this flight.

xoxo

P.S. Stay tuned to the YouTube channel for videos of our Italy trip! Teaser: Mother got extremely sloshed on our last afternoon and it was rather amusing.