Running in the family

I am going to London tomorrow, for the weekend.

I will be sans children and husband again.

I know.  I am lucky.  Please do bear in mind that I did four days at the coal face of lone parenting last weekend. And I had a sad, ill small boy for the entirety of that time, and missed an evening drinking champagne with my friend Lizzie.  As such I feel I am entitled to as much time off as I can guilt my husband into giving me, and I have absolutely no shame about milking it for all it is worth.

I am going to meet with my fabulous friend Gina, who lights up my life.  We are going for lunch at The Wolseley.  I have never been, although I have written about it before.

In the afternoon we are rolling across the road to the Royal Academy to see the much lauded David Hockney exhibition.

If we are feeling a little snackish after this, we will go to Fortnum & Mason for tea. I am torn as to whether to buy treats there or in Laduree across in Burlington Arcade to take to my friends Keith and Noreen, who are providing supper, a bed and a surrogate family for the evening.

On Sunday I have the whole day in London to myself.  I have decided nine trillion times what I will do with my time. I have settled on nothing as yet.  I am not worried that I will be bored.

Far from it.

Apart from explaining why I will be offline for the next day or two, and anticipating gluttony and excess I wanted to mention my plans for a reason.

I have always known that I am very like my mum in lots of ways.  Just how much became apparent today.

I mentioned in my last post about my total sartorial failure.  Add to this the fact that I am heavier than I have been since I gave birth to Tallulah, and that half of my things do not fit me any longer, I am hard pushed to scrub up nicely.

I don’t usually mind, except that I am going to The Wolseley for my lunch, and the last time I went to an establishment type restaurant (Simpsons in the Strand) they got a trifle aerated about my clothing (my top was too low cut for their liking), and it was all rather aggravating.

I had the morning to myself, before meeting my friend Diane for lunch (which helped the diet not one whit).  I decided to do an emergency dash to T.K. Maxx to see if I could find something suitable.  My big dilemma being that I am travelling light, and need to pack savvy and warm, as well as smart.  I felt that when I went in, I was demanding quite a lot from an item of clothing.

I searched the racks for an hour before leaving the shop with this item:

I am sure you will agree that I will look absolutely stunning in this.  It’s so big it fits Derek, whose head you can just make out, peeping over the top, so I should probably be able to stretch it to fit nicely as long as I wear some sturdy undergarments.

It reminded me of the time my mum had to go shopping for a very flash wedding she had received an invitation to.  She set off at nine in the morning bound for Leicester with a look of determination on her face. She came home in the evening with two, huge bags on the back seat.

They contained two, beautiful standard lamps from Habitat.

As you can well imagine, she looked a picture.

 

Advertisement