I spent the last week in a frenzy of cleaning and excitement, as my elder sister was coming to visit me in London with my gorgeous, clever, thoroughly excellent niece. I anticipated a civilised, cultural weekend with a few quiet drinks in the evenings once Pony Mad niece had gone to bed... It's Sunday afternoon and I am sat watching Come Dine With Me while nursing a headache that just won't shift, surprising myself that I am actually writing words that vaguely do go together.
Friday evening was a lovely stroll around St Paul's, Southbank, Shad Thames and Tower Bridge, culminating in an Italian meal where I carb-loaded quite spectacularly. Back at mine, PonyMad went to watch Pirates of the Caribbean in bed and Sister and I proceeded to demolish quite a large volume of white wine and cigarettes on the balcony while talking life, love and what giving birth is really like. About three glasses after a sensible person would have stopped drinking, No'rn Iron came home from a work night out and we cracked open the last bottle. She proceeded to tell Sister all about a bloke who was being an idiot while we made sisterhood-like supportive noises.
"Tell him to fook off, fookin' prick." I never thought I'd see my nine-years-senior police officer mother-of-two sister drunkenly, liberally pepper sentences with the C word, quite happily with my housemate.
Saturday morning I definitely felt a bit rough, but a magic shower and loads of tea helped. I was bursting with pride that PonyMad not only makes the family morning tea at a weekend, but drank two cups in a row before getting ready. The plan was to go and check out the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, this made me more excited than PonyMad. First though we went to Broadway market for a mooch about and she displayed her exquisite taste by choosing a swallow necklace from one of my favourite stalls.
We detoured on the way back to Hackney City Farm, just to show them how urban Londoners do 'rural.' Coming from rural Lancashire, they weren't that impressed but we did enjoy watching people try to catch very hoppy rabbits. Sister then persuaded me that if a cat or dog wasn't an option, I could SO get a guinea pig. And call it Duncan. Yeah!
We made it on the Tube to South Kensington, encountering a woman in the carriage who appeared to have had an amazing amount of work done on her face. I was sat opposite Sister and we caught each other's eyes and tried not to a) laugh or b) involuntarily shout "Look at her LIPS though!" As we approached the museum in the sunshine, it was clear I'd made a schoolgirl error and not thought about the fact that every fucker was in London with their kids to see the dinosaurs on Bank Holiday weekend. We made do with a wander to Buckingham Palace so that PonyMad could wave to the Queen. (Or 'our Liz as I like to call her.)
Strolling from Victoria station, we noticed a sleeping bag strewn across a pavement and a large beardy man crouched down by a lamp post. I clocked what was happening and chose not to mention it.
Sister, loudly in a Bolton accent: "Is that man having a POO? Is he? Is he having a POO on the pavement?!"
Sadly, he was. I'm glad they got to see all the important sights, no one should leave the Big Smoke without having seen a vagrant defacate in public in broad daylight. *Tries not to vom*
We chose to have a quiet night in watching Britain's Got Talent (questionable) and Sister, after having declared in Tesco earlier that "we'd only need two bottles of wine," suggested I go to the shop and get some more. It turned into us being tiddly on the balcony, and Sister commenting that, "by the time I was your age, I'd met the love of my life and was having PonyMad." I told her of my plans to be a cat lady. Well not so much plans, as my Fate.
"You know what? London men in skinny jeans with pointy shoes are TWATS. You need to go out with a nice Northern lad. Fuck these Fashionista types!"
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