(… and the Olympia Horse of the Year Show programme)

Every year on his birthday, Laughing boy chooses a treat.  This could be a day out, a meal or whatever he wants really. It’s become a bit of a family joke that he only ever wants me to go on this treat.  No amount of bribery, coaxing or cajoling shakes his conviction that it’s “Just you and me, Mum”.

This year’s treat was a bus trip to London, the model shop, lunch in Chinatown and then home.  What is a little bit weird (for me) is that LB doesn’t want to chat AT ALL. In fact he only spontaneously said two things during the entire day; “I wish I was a Londoner, Mum” and “I saw an Eddie Stobart lorry, Mum”.  I try not to chat to him because it’s his day though it’s a funny experience being with someone, all day, silently.

At the bus stop

(Eagle-eyed blog readers will recognise the Co-op in the distance where I nearly met Michelle Obama. Also where Green Dragon now works. You might also notice the Horse of the Year show programme.)

In London, we walked along Oxford Street to Model Zone. There we caused a slight commotion as the die cast bus LB chose  was a display copy, missing a wing mirror. The price was reduced and the shop assistant guy wanted to hunt around to find the wing mirror so we could repair it. “Nah, that’s great”, I said. “LB breaks em off anyway cos you can’t rely on them”.  This unusual approach to collectable die cast models was compounded by my request to not give us the plastic display case (which, for LB, is the first thing chucked away before the wing mirrors).

After that was all sorted, it was off to Chinatown for a tasty but silent lunch, a walk back to Marble Arch and back on the bus home.  Perfect.

Waiting for the crispy duck

I don’t know why the Olympia programme featured so much in the day. But then it wasn’t my birthday treat.

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