Mum’s surprise day out in London

As you’ll know from my previous posts, it was my mum’s 50^th birthday last week and she’s had a week of surprises. Our present to her was a day out in London, which of course was a secret too.

I picked her up at 9.30am and we set off for Oxford Circus. Our destination was Old Bond Street’s Tiffany’s. The magpie in me absolutely loves Tiffany’s jewellery and mum had never stepped foot in any of their shops. As she’d only quite recently seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s the movie, I thought it appropriate to recreate the moment (or try). Conduit Street Starbucks provided the food, but Starbucks can never quite grasp my name for the cup which always brings comical value to my coffee. I’ve been named Laura, Lean (really wish I was) and that day I was Lea. Maybe it’s the way I say it, must work on that…Liiiiiiiii….annnnnnnnnnnne.

Now of course, Tiffanys is a fine establishment (dahhhh-ling) which means you can’t actually eat IN there, so we searched eagerly for a bench or somewhere to perch outside, whilst we devoured croissants and coffee. Turns out there isn’t anywhere, unless the curb tickles your fancy? It didn’t, so we lingered awkwardly on the pavement scoffing until we’d finished and could have a nosey about inside. FAIL!

Once we’d finished browsing (our favourite pieces can be found below), we headed off to Baker Street to Madame Tussauds; somewhere else mum had never been. I managed to get hold of a 2 for 1 voucher on www.daysoutguide.co.uk so paid £30 instead of £60 for the two of us. As long as you’re travelling by train and show your train ticket for that day, you’ll get the 2 for 1 offer, although the lady at the box office didn’t actually check our train tickets.

We were both impressed with how realistic some of the waxworks were (Russell Brand, Benedict Cumberpatch, Bruce Willis, Mo Farah and Helen Mirran for example) and mum commented on how lifelike the eyes were. The experience also now includes a 4d viewing of a short superheroes film, which had some great special effects too, so yeah that was good.

3 o’clock and our next stop was The Park Lane Hotel’s Palm Court Restaurant for champagne afternoon tea, which I found a voucher on www.redletterdays.co.uk for. I bought the ticket so long ago, I can’t remember how much I paid for it then, but there’s an offer on there now for around £80 for 2 people, so I would imagine it would have been around that mark. The hotel itself is very grand (as expected) and had a huge Christmas tree in the lobby. Everything looks so much prettier at Christmas, so it was nice to see it this time of year. We had a short wait and were then shown to our table. The restaurant is decorated in an Art Deco style with strong chinoserie influences found in the spiky plants and the vines in the wallpaper panels, and that too was decorated for Christmas.

Shortly after we sat down, a harpist appeared, dressed in the most elegant evening gown and playing the most beautiful music. She positioned herself directly behind mum right next to our table, so of course I told her that I had arranged that especially for her birthday. She definitely didn’t believe me. The harpist played everything from Enrique Iglesias to The Lion King Soundtrack, which I thoroughly enjoyed and felt the need to tell her when I saw her in the loo after tea!

The waiter handed us a menu each to choose our tea and I was amazed at the amount of options – from camomile to earl grey to rose. I was keen to try something I had never had before and wouldn’t usually choose and although I enjoy a fruit tea, I’m not keen on Earl Grey as I found it quite fragrant when I tried it. Most of the others sounded like they too would taste perfumey, so I opted for the safe English breakfast tea, as I knew I would enjoy that. Mum did the same. We were served a glass of Champagne followed by finger sandwiches (chicken mayonnaise roll, cream cheese and cucumber, egg mayonnaise and cress, smoked salmon and beef and horseradish sandwiches), which were all delicious! Our next course was scones – fruit and plain with butter, clotted cream, lemon curd, strawberry and raspberry jam. To finish? French pastries – a really rich chocolately cake, a fruit tart, a caramel slice and an orange slice. The portions were tiny, but I couldn’t believe how full we were when we left. We must have filled up on tea! The staff were attentive and very professional, the food was fantastic and the surroundings beautiful. I would highly recommend Palm Court to anybody who fancies a spot of afternoon tea in London.

We had some time to spare before the show started, so I had secured us a table at Jewel Bar in Piccadilly to while away an hour or so and sup a few cocktails. The booking entitled us to table service, so we didn’t want for anything and every time the waitress went past she checked we weren’t in need of another drink. We started off with a MASSIVE Pornstar martini, it’s meant for 3 people and mum decided that after 3 sips, actually she didn’t like it. Luckily for me, I do. So yeah, I guzzled most of that! Yum! We had a couple more drinks (mum a fruit Bulmers and me some horrendous honey rum concoction – fyi, honey rum is lovely, all the ingredients SOUNDED lovely but together, just no!) and some eats, (mum, a chicken burger and chips and me, calamari and chips (lush!)) and then headed off to our final destination (not literally…there were no deaths involved that day thank god!)

I’d booked tickets to see East is East at Trafalgar Studios, which conveniently is really close to Charing Cross station, so off we headed. There wasn’t much of a queue so we went straight in to find our seats. The theatre itself is quite small, so there was minus no leg room. At 5ft 2, leg room is not normally a problem for me but even I was a bit squished. As a family, we love the film East is East and use lots of the quotes from the film when bantering with each other, so with everything else I had planned, when looking at budgets it won hands down against War Horse and Lion King (2 I’m definitely planning on going to see soon).

Jane Horrock played Ella Khan fantastically and we were pretty impressed with the actors who played the children too. The show portrayed the difficult family relationships and the challenges the father faced bringing up his Asian family in a predominantly white British Salford much more vividly than the film, but the passion and drama only added to the atmosphere on stage. It’s a controversial show choice and admittedly, not for everyone (the couple behind us asked in the interval if there’d be less swearing in the second half) but we enjoyed it, if only for Jane Horrock’s performance. A good job well done.

Back to work I go to pay for mum’s 51^st!!

Mum’s 50th Birthday Dinner at the Hilton

I want to start this post with an apology, I haven’t stopped this week (lots more to come), so whilst I wrote this a week ago, I haven’t had 2 minutes to post it. Needless to say, the timings are a little out – this was written last Sunday and it’s now Saturday. I promise I’ll make up for my absence!

After wading through my thousands of emails last week, I decided that I should really pay more attention to the 10 I receive daily from daily deals websites. I tend to skim read and hit the delete button but actually some of those deals are REALLY good so thought why not trial a few, visit some new places and try some exciting new things?

I’m particularly interested in the hotel deals, as I’ve realised you can bag a stay at some gorgeous hotels (in some great cities both in the UK and worldwide with 3 course dinners/spa packages/breakfast for 2 included) all from a measly £59.

Chris and I don’t go away very often, yet we’ve got a list as long as my arm of places we’d like to go, so 2015 shall be the year of travel! We’ve already each booked a boozy weekend away with our friends in January and March, so along with those and the deals I’m going to sniff out, hopefully I’ll have lots of travel posts for you lucky people next year.

I’m pretty committed to this daily deals idea, so I’ve decided to dedicate a page on my blog for it to share my experiences with you, and here is my first:

It’s my mum’s 50^th birthday this week and one of her best friends got in touch with me to say that she’d like to organise a girlie evening out for her. She’d seen a deal on Wowcher for a 3 course buffet meal for 2 at The Hilton, Docklands with a ferry ride over from Canary Wharf for a very reasonable price and thought it would be a great idea to book that for 6 of us (all family friends) as a surprise for mum.

I searched for the deal on Wowcher, followed the booking instructions and printed off my ‘Wowcher.’ Lisa (mum’s friend) booked a table at the restaurant for last weekend, mentioning the vouchers and we were ready to go. Simples!

My task then was to rally mum and nan together and get them to Canary Wharf. Mum is terrible with surprises; she hates them and not being in control of where she’s going and what she’s doing. I told her the bare necessities – that we were going out and that she needed something nice to wear. I refused to tell her where we were going or who was joining us and I thought at one point she was going to refuse to leave the house, but I kept schtum about the evening’s plans (just) and got her out the door without too much aggro.

We planned to travel up on the train, but my nan decided that a cab would be a better idea as some of the ladies hadn’t seen each other for 20 years and she thought it’d give us all more of a chance to catch up. We certainly chewed each others’ ears off on the journey to London but our cab driver left a little to be desired as he definitely didn’t have a clue where he was going. Everyone gets lost from time to time, admittedly, so whilst this is forgivable, he failed to vocalise the fact he didn’t know where he was going. So whilst we’re all chatting away oblivious to what’s going on, he’s circling Canary Wharf at 6.45pm searching for a ferry to get us to the hotel restaurant, for a table that was booked for 6.15! Fearful that we’d lose our reservation, we skipped the ferry ride and headed straight to the restaurant in the end, although he didn’t find that with ease either.

When we finally arrived, what struck me upon entering the restaurant was the spectacular view. The restaurant is on the water, so there are fantastic views over the Thames of Canary Wharf on the other side.

Mum and I

The waitress showed us to our table (I made sure mum and I were facing the window) and took our drinks orders – after much deliberating we chose the Pinot Grigio and managed to glug down 3 bottles throughout the night. The waitress was friendly and helpful and explained that it was buffet style, where you could help yourself and eat as much as you like.

The restaurant served leek and potato soup, a huge variety of different breads, vinegars and oils and a cold selection to start, a choice of four main meals and fruit, profiteroles and four different cheesecakes for dessert.

I opted for bread, balsamic vinegar and oil and some of the cold selection for starters – mussels, smoked salmon and salad, which were all really tasty. I do have to admit, I went a bit mad on the main and decided to try a bit of everything. On the one plate I’m not ashamed to say, I had fish pie, beef stroganoff, chickpea curry, seasoned chicken, broccoli, rice and potatoes. Ok maybe a little ashamed, but hey, it was a spoonful of each and on one plate, so TECHNICALLY still one main, right? I’m such a nightmare at buffets, I get serious FOMO (fear of missing out, to those who don’t know), so feel the need to try everything and ALWAYS overeat.

I was particularly impressed with the chickpea curry and the chicken was seasoned superbly – Lisa went back for a second main on that basis! On to pudding, and obvs I skipped over the fruit, (in fact I genuinely didn’t even see it until nan brought some back in a bowl) and headed straight to the cakes! I chose the Strawberry cheesecake and a profiterole (just one, y’know, just to try). I loved the cheesecake; the portion was just right – enough to feel satisfied with that much needed end of dinner sweet fix but not too much that I couldn’t finish it. I must admit, I wasn’t overly keen on the profiteroles, but everybody else went mad for them, so they can’t have been that bad!

For the amount we ate, the deal was fantastic value for money and I’d like to visit again in the summer to make the most of the sun terrace and the bar, although some of the drinks were quite pricey. The cocktails were only £8 each but the wine was £28 a bottle and a can of red bull was £3.60, so perhaps I’ll be saving up first or finding myself another Wowcher deal for beverages!