Girls in Town

Is it possible to get 5 years worth of wrinkles in just 24 hours? My face has aged from laughing, I have alcohol poisoning, smokers lung and an addiction to cheese and onion crisps!

The "Girls" weekend is synonymous with hen parties or celebrating a birthday or something but more and more these days, I'm finding my friends want to come into town purely because they miss their old lives here.

The weekend is madness. It usually involves one or two mums coming into London from out of town, where they had disappeared to years previously to have babies, they then realise they miss London dreadfully, organise a long weekend with their single girl friends still living in London, plan to visit every single one of their favourite restaurants and bars in 2 days, take in some sights, drink more, see a show, drink more... and so it goes on.

There are unwritten rules too:

You...
Do not act your age
Do not care when you are looked at by strangers with a sort of "do they KNOW what they look like?" look
Flirt with men of all ages
Try and get in everywhere for free
Tip everyone extravagantly
Flirt with waiters even when obviously gay
Tell all black cab drivers you know a better route
Take hundreds of photos
Think you look sexy when drunk until you see yourself in the mirror and look a hundred!

Saturday:
Carluccio's in Market Place 1pm. Half the group go to the wrong restaurant in St. Christophers Place... very easily done. Visiting Mum has to wait an extra 20 minutes for us and decides to drink half a bottle of wine on her own.
Carluccio's 5pm. Waiters have changed shifts for evening service. We are on third bill. Eaten little, but have drunk 5 bottles of wine between 5 of us! Oops. Flirt terribly with out third waiter who is a midget... seriously. Try to do some shopping on Oxford Street, swear at all the tourists and duck into another bar for a soothing cocktail.
Match Bar 7pm. 3 cocktails and a gin Martini. Realise we are due at the theatre in 20 minutes and try to hail a black cab... in the rain. Wet and irritable, we insist we know a better route to the theatre and end up gridlocked. I start to panic because hate getting to the theatre late. Girls laugh at me getting worked up and I get more stressed. Visiting Mum suggests we forget the theatre and drink more. We all agree paying £55 per ticket is just a little extravagant to blow off for a drink!! Not so drunk heh? Get to theatre just as doors are closing and lights dimming. People tut as we drag our coats over them and tread on feet to get to our seats in middle of row. Visiting Mum gets hiccups and people in surrounding seats tut more. A woman in the stalls screams loudly and then faints. Actors freeze on stage and curtain drops prematurely to allow ambulance men in to drag her away. Much drama. We love it... it's almost better than the intense play we are watching (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by the way... first time done with all black cast and headlining is one James Earl Jones of booming voice and Darth Vader credentials). Play continues after another drink at bar. Decide we need more food and go for wine and curry... eeek!
12:30 am In bed... not bad.

Sunday:
A different set of girls this time, 2 Visiting Mums and 3 single London girls. We get boat up river (after both Mums check with different staff there is DEFINITELY a bar on board and there aren't Dickensian rules on Sunday drinking laws!) and we start off with cider. There are hundreds of teenage girls on board staring at us, possibly because we are grown up and are on our way to the O2 arena to see X Factor Live. We manage to have 3 drinks.
2pm Arrive at the dome for show. 3 vodka and tonics later we are in the arena and screaming like mad when all the young male singers come on stage. The parents with kids look at us with disdain. We get another round of drinks during a ballad and spot some empty seats much further forward in the stadium. Visiting Mum takes charge and hauls us to them. Security move us back to our original seats. We watch another couple of acts, screaming throughout (well you just can't hear yourself above the din of thirteen year olds) and attempt the seat maneuver again. This time, ex-model Mum tries to distract security as we go around the back. Imagine five, 40-somethings playing commando and you get the idea. Ex-model Mum gets upset that her flirting no longer works and we are moved back to original seats by a unimpressed security guard. Jedward come on and we all go temporarily deaf. Intermission and more drinks. Security guard approaches us whilst having drinks and we think we are going to be chucked out. Surprisingly, he tells us we can now sit where we want because he can't be bothered to keep moving us back... we all hug him, take photos, cheer and drink to celebrate.
5pm Boat back into Waterloo. Cider and monster photo session. We bribe young teenage girls with cokes and crisps to be our photographers. They know how to use the camera phones better than us so its a good shout.
6pm Visiting Mums decide they want to dance and are infuriated when single girls can't think of anywhere that would have dancing at 6pm on a sunday night!!!!! We end up in an Australian pub and dance even though no music. No one seems to mind. We eat 8 bags of cheese and onion crisps (we forgot to eat earlier) and drink shots of Midori melon liqueur (don't ask... model Mum was reminiscing about a modeling job in the 80's)
9pm Come home and spot half a bottle of red wine in kitchen and a bag of doritos. Well, it would be shame not to.