Good evening all! It is very late on a Saturday evening, so
we know what that means, right? YES, indeed, it is one of the seven nights of
the week that Mother has several glasses of wine and behaves
inappropriately! The only reason I enjoy
these tests of my patience is my ability to write a blog about it.
Mother and I are on a 4-day business trip (sidenote: I do
not work with Mother on a regular basis) in a 'lovely' *cough* little town
beside Valencia city. The purpose of this trip is strictly business, therefore
leaving very little time to explore, which meant that I was not at all
disappointed to find the hotel and venue in an extremely odd, remote area.
However, my life does revolve around
food (obviously) and so, upon dinner time, I am curious as to what I might be
able to consume in this little village-thing. A-ha! A supermarket, thank you very much! A good little take-away salad will suffice. Oooh,
look! They have pots of pureed fruit for adults! Right up my street! ... Ah,
no... wait. Of course. The baby food does not quite reach the high standards that Mother
holds. Instead, we venture into the 'town' to find something better.
"Perhaps they have a simple French bistro,
darling!"
Yes, I'm sure someone has popped up an exquisitely posh,
French culinary delight opposite the auto repair garage. Oh, I think I just saw
Marion Cotillard glide out of there.
I must preface this by informing you all that Mother is in
need of some hot food due to her
unbelievable misfortune the other night. I brought home some rosemary potatoes
and tartar sauce from our friends' Italian restaurant to go with our fish and
halloumi. Mother prepared the dinner by burning the halloumi (in the oven..!?)
and filling our entire home with cheese-scented smoke. I then seated
myself down for dinner to see steam coming off the tartar sauce. I enquired.
"Why is the tartar sauce steaming, Mother?"
"Pardon? No, darling, that's not tartar sauce."
"Yes. Yes it is. Why is it.... hot?"
"It was hot when I took it out of the bag,
sweetie!"
"No, Mother. It was next
to the carton of hot potatoes. Perhaps the potatoes warmed the portion of sauce a little bit... but why is the sauce
now steaming?"
"..... I put it in the oven. It's supposed to be baked,
isn't it?"
"Are you joking? You put tartar sauce.... in the oven???"
"Well, yes! I thought I had to heat it up!"
So there we have it. Mother burnt the halloumi to a crisp
and we dined in a smoke filled room trying to eat lumpy, baked tartar sauce.
You can see, now, why Mother might have felt inclined to find food cooked by
anyone else.
Back to the restaurant-hunt in the desert. So, there is only
one restaurant here. It is Chinese. I was sceptical, what's new. Mother was
optimistic.
"It must be lovely, darling! - Look, there are real
Chinese people coming out of it. They must be real Chinese chefs, it'll be
great!"
To be honest, she was right. It was the BEST Chinese food I
have ever eaten and it was unbelievably cheap. A miracle.
We dined here yesterday for lunch and returned back to the
hotel (rolling) very happily. Today, we decide to return for dinner, rather
than stuff our faces with more boxed salads. Half way through our Korean
chicken (ten out of ten, would recommend), a family of 300 come in. I
exaggerate. 4 adults, 6 children. One child is one child too many, in my
opinion, however I mildly understand the necessity of reproduction and I manage
to hold back any resentment. Mother, on the other hand, does not. As the family
enter the restaurant, the excessive amount of children pour themselves into the
fish pond and loudly exclaim, continuously, with excitement. I presume they
have never seen a fish before. I inhale and exhale, like YouTube meditation
videos teach you to do whenever feeling a little overwhelmed. Meanwhile, Mother
instantly marches (loudly) over to the table of parents who have seated
themselves as far away from their own offspring as the restaurant's seating
arrangements could possible allow.
"NIÑOS! YOUR NIÑOS, SÍ??!!" *translation;
"Children! Your children, yes??!!"
All four parents spin around and meet Mother's
extraordinarily angry face. I see them physically tremble as they slowly nod...
"LOUD! TOO
LOUD!" Mother covers her ears frantically over and over again like
a monkey.
Immediately, without hesitation, all four parents (the two
men look at their partners to see what to do) get up and literally run over to
their children, shouting "STOP, STOP, STOPPPPP!" despairingly at
them. The children obey straight away and are formally escorted away from the
fascinating fish and back to their seats, nodding apologetically towards Mother
on their way. Mother nods, smugly, back. An understanding has been established.
During this, my reflex was to pretend I had nothing to do
with Mother. I did not know this crazy British woman. I am dining alone. I take
my phone from my bag and lean over it as if I have something very important to
write. In fact, I open my notes and type; "chinese. children. cringe.
help. blog." in hopes that this will have a dual purpose of disguising my
knowledge of what's going on with Mother and also remind me to write a blog
about it.
The remainder of our dinner went smoothly, of course.
HAHAHA OF COURSE IT DIDN'T. Nope, one
display was not enough this evening, we had to have two. Another family arrived
shortly after; mother, father, son, daughter. They seemed civilised and quiet
(in comparison). However, when Mother is on a role, she really doesn't like to
be stopped. So, when the little boy/girl (all children sound the same to me)
raised his/her voice a tiny decibel above Mother's accepted noise level, she
shot up, out of her chair like an overdue firework. Immediately, without Mother
actually opening her mouth, the father spun around and said;
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, haha!" and delivered a huge, friendly smile whilst
Mother continued to bare her gritted teeth and snarl. Much like a dog.
Mother finds it difficult to accept the kind-hearted nature
of the Spanish, due to spending many years in England, gearing up for some kind
of verbal altercation at any opportune moment. So, Mother un-snarled slowly (an
amusing visual) and nodded in acceptance. No words exited her mouth.
"It is Spain, this is what it is like, hahaha!"
The wonderfully happy father proceeded to say. Poor soul, he thought he was going
to get a laugh back. He did not. Mother simply said "mmhmm..." and
smiled ( a bit). I however, interjected and took on the situation by sharing an
embarrassingly large grin and laugh back at him, to show him that I understood, do not worry, please don't
feel bad, I, in fact, am mortified.
" Well, if that is what Spain is like, bringing their
children up to behave like chimpanzees in restaurants, they are DOING IT
WRONG!" Mother informed me as she turned back to our table.
Mortified that the family might have heard (very strong
understanding of English), I whipped out my phone again, on autopilot, ready to disassociate myself from Mother,
forgetting that she was sitting at my table.
Once again, I must stress to you, dear reader, that Mother
is not Cruella de Vil (all the time) and is usually ridiculously nice to
everyone she meets. As long as they are male. And athletic. With brown eyes.
And shirtless.
Until next time, chums! xoxo
