Operation Heart Attack

I have always wanted to kill my sister. For a long time now I have been very kind to her and eyed her extensive shoe collection enviably, reminding her that none of her friends have size 7 feet, which is a shame because many of the shoes stay in their boxes for months.  Four years ago when she moved to London, I persuasively convinced my sister that it was a very dangerous city indeed, especially that Brixton area she had chosen to live in and the only sensible thing to do would be to insure all her worldly goods in order to ensure emotional compensation for me, her only sister in the tragic circumstances of her loss.  I then provided her with a list of the stuff of hers that I liked: shoes, digital music collection, 'cello, make up, framed pictures, clothes, piano (technically half mine anyway), GHDs (though pointless in the tropics), long coat...  She was thus cajoled into the signing of her last will and testament and all that was then required to avoid my indictment was an ingeniously subtle murder masked as an accident.

Thus I hatched the Operation Heart Attack whereby I stole stealthily into London having convinced all close friends and family that I was planning on surprising my sister with my presence for her birthday.  Since she has no other siblings, her love remains undivided and therefore, to all outside observers, this act was simply one adoring sister demonstrating the extent of her love for the other. Fools. 

Imagine me, then, creeping off the Eurostar (very comfortable and civilised) to a dissonant soundtrack (with accompanying percussion of luggage wheels on a variety of surfaces), slipping through the underground like that snake thing in one of the good Harry Potters and then sleuthing along the streets of St. Paul to her posh office next to the Mayor's house.  The scene was slightly ruined when I got a bit lost and had to stop sleuthing to consult a bus stop map, but at least I didn't have to ask a passerby, 'excuse me, where does the Mayor live?'

To be honest, by this time I was quite excited by London looking so pretty in the sunshine so I skipped rather than sleuthing at all and got a bit carried away, so by the time I walked past the fishbowl windows of my sister's office, I had forgotten all about Operation Heart Attack and was concentrating more on Operation Charlie Chaplin Mime as I tried to subtly catch her attention by walking back and forth in front of her window as if I just happened to have found myself next to the Guildhall.  I also did the going up and down the escalator walk, and then the descending elevator, but she didn't notice. 

Eventually (it took at least two walk-pasts and I am quite an impatient person and cannot understand why the whole world's attention is not on me and me alone at all times), my sister saw me and put on an acceptable performance of rushing-out-and-crying-hysterically, which was most satisfactory and I remembered that I was rather glad that I hadn't killed her because Frenchie and I were hoping to stay at her house and eat her food. 

Since London was looking so pretty and I am officially a tourist in my own country, I decided to explore further afield to Places I Have Never Been and had a lovely time frolicking between friends and family and enjoying the liberty of the hire car in the Cambridge and Cotswold countryside. On my first trip to Ely (I saw a BBC documentary about it once that involved Irish princesses and the spread of Christianity and battles and armour and other stuff that made it look v. cool indeed), my old friend Classic FM were playing some fantastic choons and so I zipped along the A roads getting very lost and  singing all the parts (especially the viola and bassoon parts) very loudly out of the open window. 

Look how pretty Ely cathedral is. All should visit and drink tea and eat scones as I did, despite apparent gluten intolerance. I flash the intolerance the vs whilst in England, Kingdom of Cakes and France, Republic of Baguettes and Pastry. 

In Ely, women have awesome names like Etheldreda and Sexubia (inaccurate - I wasn't listening properly to the tour guide) and get married and run away from their husbands and become nuns at the mention of marital fornication. Prudish, but doing it for Team Female, I feel. 

After Ely, there was a brief trip over to the West Country to see some spry grandparents and act as chauffeur to the Grub who, now that she has her name appearing in the credits of films, demands a beautiful on call driver for all long distance travel and lunch stops at gorgeous Cotswold villages.  Even the doors are pretty in this part of the world:

Then I took Frenchie to Cambridge to show him how clever we all were over in the UK, but since everyone had informed me, miserably, that one did not drive into Cambridge, one took the park and ride, and if one were stupid enough to drive into Cambridge, one would never find a parking space, and if one were to miraculously find a parking space, one would have to saw off their left leg in order to pay for said parking space, I decided instead to live out my Downton and I Captured the Castle fantasies by visiting Wimpole Hall, where there were lots of delightful British things like the National Trust, and wasps and long grass on relatively flat land and crumbling follies and sheep. 

The day threatened to be over too soon and my mother suggested going home for a cup of tea, my sister for a nap to recover from her night before, and my Li Hi persona (albeit dressed in floral and pastel colours and wearing an oversized white sun hat) stomped its foot and demanded more from the day. More!

I thus suggested we drive until we see a brown tourist sign and then we explore said tourist sign.  All agreed, somewhat half-heartedly and then promptly fell asleep in the back of the car, but this was okay because it gave me the chance to laugh a dastardly laugh and ignore all the brown signs until I woke them up yelling because of this:

Mother: what did you do?

Me: I followed the signs to Cambridge!

Sister: urgh... we'll never be able to park here. 

Frenchie: what is a... 'Cambridge'?

Me: LOOK!  A PARKING SPACE RIGHT OPPOSITE THE CASTLE!

Unfortunately, it was a space that required parallel parking, and I have not driven properly for six months and probably wasn't much good at parallel parking even when I was driving frequently. The voice of The Patriarchy laughed haughtily in my ear and told his friend, Oppression, that a mere woman like me wouldn't have been able to parallel park in a warehouse let alone this space (probably true) so, upon hearing this voice, I slammed on the breaks (fuck the queue of traffic behind me, this was a feminist issue I was dealing with), did a very impressive 3-point turn and sped back to the space with a vengeance.

There was a tense moment where I almost lost heart and three voices in the back of the car and the passenger seat had to coax me encouragingly into the space.  Little to the left, full lock now, Ems, keep going, you've got loads of room, stop, stop, stop!  And, tadah!  Emma 1-0 The Patriarchy. 

Then there was the matter of parking, which cost 50p every 10 minutes. I read the instructions three times and then called Frenchie over because who better to confirm instructions in English than the Frenchman?  Was I correct in understanding, I asked him, that the instructions said, '50p every 10 minutes up to 2 hours, except on Sundays when everything is free and there is no time limit'?  Yes, Frenchie informed me.  This too was his understanding. 

Hahahaha!  Emma 1-0 World!  And how pretty Cambridge is, also, and how filled to the brimming with clever people. 

In another life, I feel like Cambridge would have been My Kind of Place, but since that time is over now, I have vowed to live vicariously through my children and force them to attend Oxbridge whether they like it or not, since it looks like I won't be eating for the next twenty years whilst I save up to pay the fees for any UK university. £9000 plus inflation, just for course fees?!  Wtf UK, have you not realised that rich does not equate to clever and that universities are for academic excellence, not the wealthy elite and that a child is more than capable of getting four A*s at A level without habitually wiping their arses on £50 bills from potty training to aged 18. How phenomenally stupid. Urgh.  The sooner I am in charge of the world, the better. 

After that socialist rant, it was back to Paris for me where I ticked off some tourist to-dos including the Musée d'Orsay, which was very pretty and full of Impressionism, but where I ultimately got museum fatigue and had to sit on a marble bench for a while until I recovered; the Petit Palais, which was free, thank goodness - a lot of Paris is not - where I took photos of food whilst recovering from a relapse of museum fatigue, and the Opéra de Paris, where the Phantom of the Opera lives. This was very pretty and full of gold.