It’s an early start for us at the White Swan in Pickering.

Today my 87 yr old Mother and I are going on the Uke Express, a service on the North Yorks Moors Railway commandeered by a bunch of ukulele players. We have our song sheets,  (Mother asked for hers two nights ago so she could practise the words – I told her it wasn’t a test) our ukuleles, (I have taken one for Mum even though she doesn’t play, just she she won’t feel left out), and we’re meeting on the platform at 9am.

Mum is already up and shuffling about when my alarm goes off at 7. We’ve both slept well and she’s keen to hear all about the previous evening.  As we dress – debating every item – I describe my evening. I remember that we were told that Channel 5 will be filming on the train today, they are making a documentary about the railway. I tell her to prepare to be interviewed, and she giggles, and says “Oh lord, here we go again..” – she knows me too well.

We manage to get out of the room and down for breakfast on schedule (8am) and venture into the hotel dining room. It’s a low ceiling room which looked lovely the previous evening with candles twinkling and fire lit but could do with a bit more natural light at breakfast.  We choose a table and swap sides twice, as the spotlight is shining in Mum’s eyes from both sides.

I ignore the continental buffet. I don’t eat a three course breakfast at home so why do it when away? Mum however, has other ideas.  She’s going to get her money’s worth here, and there is plenty to choose from.  Dried fruit, fresh fruit, yoghurt, muesli, granola, cereal, juice, ham, cheese. I can read Mum’s mind. If only she’d brought her handbag down to breakfast with her. She wouldn’t need to buy food for a week.

I order some tea for Mum and hot water for me (I’ve brought my own redbush teabags) and chat to the lady from the Uke night who is also staying at the hotel. They have travelled over from Hoylake on the Wirral, they’ve been to these things before but never been on the Uke Express.

I look over at Mum to see how she’s getting on, but she is standing still, lost in ponder, just looking at the array of food, unable to make a decision. I watch, as she appears to have decided, and goes to towards the bowls. Then she hesitates, and reverts to her previous position. This makes me giggle. She hears me and joins in. We don’t need to explain to each other why we’re chuckling uncontrollably, we both know its because Mum can’t make a decision when faced with so much choice.

We are rendered idiots within seconds, unable to speak, tears running down our faces.

When I catch a breath and regain control, I remind her that we have to be on the platform in 45 minutes, so best get a move on.

She remarks that the bowls are the wrong shape.  She wants a cereal bowl, but what the hotel use for breakfast is an oversized soup plate. We giggle some more and I say she is just going to have to suck it up, so she goes for it.

She arrives back at the table with some forlorn looking melon and a box of All Bran. I watch her eating it, unconvinced, and we giggle again at the fact that she’s regretting her choice.

We order cooked food (me, dippy eggs and soldiers, Mum, egg, bacon, tomato) and attempt small talk in hushed tones. Mum’s hearing is going though, so hushed tones have to be repeated, louder and louder until I’m basically addressing the whole room who are pretending not to hear. The All Bran never makes it out of the packet, but she smuggles it out of the dining room anyway.

Thankfully the station is just a short walk away, Mum pausing briefly outside the ironmongers store at the bottom of the hill to admire out loud his display of brooms and bird feeders.

We’re on the platform ahead of schedule and I leave Mum at a table and chairs while I go off to find the Channel 5 crew.  I’m wearing a rather fetching hat, and it is received well by other traingoers, most of whom have dressed in wet weather gear, despite the sunny forecast.  There is a lot of Goretex©

I find the cameraman (he’s on his own, a one man film crew – that’s progress for you) and explained about Mum being the oldest person on board at 92 years of age. He says he’ll come and find us when we’re on the train. I believe him.

When I find Mum she’s made some more friends, they admire my hat, marvel at Mum’s new age and we board the Uke Express.

We find a nice cosy two seats across the aisle from a 4 in the middle of a long carriage split by a little station in the middle where the guard makes coffees and teas.  Everything is as it was in 1930 when the train was first commissioned.

Coats are folded neatly in the appropriate rack, we all get comfy and prepare to strum.  I look out of the window at the big clock on the platform, and notice that the clockmakers name is JOYCE. As this is my Mum’s name, and it’s the kind of thing old people remark on, I mention it.  She can’t see it,  it’s too far away.  She doesn’t believe me anyway – who would put Joyce on a clock?  I take a photo of it, then zoom in on the photo and show her it. I knew full well it would blow her mind. It does.  She looks straight at me across the table, accusatorially and asks me if I’ve done it. No Mum, I say, even my powers don’t extend to getting North Yorks Moors Railway to put my Mum’s name on their 100 year old station clock just for the craic.

I google it and discover that it was made in Whitchurch in Shropshire by JB Joyce. The company claim to be the oldest clock manufacturer in the world, originally established in 1690,  and made clocks for various public buildings, including the Eastgate clock in Chester.

Mum doesn’t understand Google. I don’t feel qualified to explain to her how I can tap something into my phone and come out with such amazing knowledge, so instead, I take most of the glory.  Whenever we want to know anything for the rest of the weekend, she suggests I get it out of my phone. “You’ve everything on that phone” she says.

I purchase a guide book for Mum and soon we’re underway, enjoying the lovely scenery of the North Yorks Moors, accompanied by the somewhat less tranquil sound made by 30+ ukulele players all trying to play Build Me Up Buttercup in time with each other with no lead. A lady across from us attempts to keep everyone in time by standing up and clapping the beat but there is a hardcore contingency who couldn’t stick to a tempo if it was being beaten on their foreheads with a teaspoon and she soon gives up. The three sections of the carriage are all playing out of sync, it is a like a bad transatlantic conference call but fun all the same.

Out of the windows we see pheasants, deer, and a shooting party, the first two presumably trying to avoid the third. We stop at stations and crossings where people wave at the train, smiling. Steam trains do that to folk, though in fairness ukuleles do that to people too. It’s a very happy instrument. You don’t get many sad songs written on the uke.

True to his word, the cameraman arrives and attempts to interview Mum mid song.  We’re playing Down By The Riverside at the time, and Mum is taking her singing role very seriously, which means all his questions are met with the same response.

Cameraman: “Tell me why you’re here today?”

Mum (singing):”Down by the riverside”

Cameraman: “Do you play the ukulele?”

Mum : “Down by the riverside”

It’s very funny. I suspect she can’t hear what he is saying anyway,  it is a bit of a cacophony on board and since she struggled in a quiet dining room this morning I don’t think he stands a hope in hell.   Anyway, he films her singing away in the flat cap I made her wear, a power house at 92, and leaves us be.

We pass through Goatland station, which was used in the first Harry Potter movie as Hogsmeade. At Grosmont, the final station on the NYMR before we switch tracks onto Whitby, Mum declares that she has a photo in her handbag of her on Grosmont station in about 1960. Thinking that she’s looked it out specifically, I’m impressed. She brings out an envelope full of photographs and I realise that she carries these around with her whereever she goes. It’s the 87 yr old’s answer to iCloud.

After singing the whole songbook through a couple of times we’re pulling into Whitby and it’s time to leave the train and go exploring.   Although it’s been a few years since either of us visited, it doesn’t seem to have changed much.   It’s about 11.15 am and we have a couple of hours to kill before the train leaves at 2pm to take us back to Pickering.  As we leave the station, we meet Matt, one of the organisers of today (the Chief). Mum thanks him for all his hard work, saying it’s super. I take some photo’s of Mum and the train and we toddle off into town.

Looking up at the Abbey, perched high above the harbour, I accept that our tourist days are now confined to things that are flat. We wander along the waterfront and spy a man dressed as a pirate who is touting tours on an ex-lifeboat. At £3pp for a 25 minute trip this is a bargain.  Where I live, £3 won’t even get you insulted.

Soon we’ve paid up and we’re killing time until the boat arrives back from its current trip by dressing Mum up as a pirate.

The boat trip is lovely. Don’t rush, take your time, just get a move on, instructs the Captain, as Mum gingerly makes her way along the gang plank. She wants to sit at the front, so I assure her we will, in a loud voice, ensuring anyone else with that idea gets the message.

She only manages a few minutes in her seat though, and then the urge to ask a million questions gets the better of her and she makes her way up the tiny side of the boat to talk to the Captain.

I can’t hear any of the conversation, but the lady sitting closest can, and I can tell by her laughter that it’s obviously quite entertaining. She then mouths “CAN I TAKE HER HOME WITH ME?” at me through her chuckles and I nod “SHE’S YOURS”.

I enjoy the boat ride on my own, and she eventually makes her way back to her seat as we turn and head for home.  She imparts all the wonderful knowledge she has found out about the boat and instructs me to take some deep breaths of the wonderful sea air. Fill your lungs, she says, and as if I needed an example, begins to breathe noisily. I want to say that at 52, I’ve actually been breathing for quite a while, but instead I humour her and oblige. The sun is shining, it’s not too chilly and neither of us have lost our hats or our rags yet, it’s a good day.

On disembarking, I offer a tip to the Captain, and Mum asks him where the best place is to get a pint of “REAL ALE, REAL-HAND-PULLED-ALE”. He suggests the Station, handily placed for our return journey and soon she’s sitting in a very basic pub room with a pint of Timothy Taylors Boltmaker (PINT ONE). There are some other uke players there, and we start playing from their song sheets, Mum happy to sing along. One very kind chap from Fylde Uke Club charges my iPhone which is close to expiring.

Mum is quite particular about her ale. I’ve been with her many times when she has sent her first pint back. Today I ask her how it is. “Not great, probably the first out of the pipes” she chirps, unimpressed. That’s a shame, I remark, especially as this pub was recommended to us. I say I’m happy to move on if she wants to, we still have over an hour till we have to be back on the platform.

She looks at me as if I’ve just suggested a threesome. Move on? She shakes her head quietly, as if fighting inner anger. Her demeanour suggests that Yorkshire women don’t simply move on because the first pint is substandard.  They are made of stronger stuff than that.  Where would we be, in this great country of ours if the lads in the World Wars had decided to just “move on?”. No.  Women from Bradford plough on through. And so with a certain amount of defiance, she sinks her pint in less than 4 drinks.  When I ask her what she would like this time, she places the glass gently on the table and says “same again please. The next one will be better”.  I get the logic and oblige. (PINT TWO)

More Uke playing, we’re joined by Sian from Welsh Wales, another Uke player. She is wearing red and green and sporting a Welsh bobble hat. On introduction, Mum struggles with her name, so we both spell it out. I mention that there used to be a weather girl on the telly called Sian. Sian explains that it is welsh for Jane, which Mum finds fascinating. I worry it might be information overload and she’ll just end up being called Jane, or Shane, but no matter.

Towards the end of the second pint, people have started making a move back to the train station, across the road. I suggest to Mum that we do this too, and that we use the loo before we go. I go first, leaving Mum to get her stuff together. When I return, she’s sporting a fresh pint and hasn’t got her coat on. (PINT THREE). I hustle her into the loo, and realise that we are cutting it a bit fine now, especially if she wants to finish the pint she’s only a third into.

I put my hand in the pocket of my coat, and grab hold of the pint under cover of my coat. It’s a bold move. There is a lot of liquid and I could end up covered in Timothy Taylor’s.  Mum emerges from the loo with one thing on her mind.  Seeing the table empty, she is not happy. Where is her pint? What have I done with her drink? She hadn’t finished with it, was it the bar staff? I hiss that the pint is under my coat and that we need to leave.

She doesn’t believe me and eyes me accusatorially (second time today). Where is it? she demands. I can tell from the way her feet seem to have taken root into the floorboards that she’s not shifting one inch.  I can’t show her it without drawing attention to the fact that I’m stealing a glass under my coat, so I decide to leave and hope that she follows me.  She does, but not without berating me in a loud voice.  Once outside I’m able to show her that I wasn’t lying, I really do have her pint, safe and sound under my coat. Overjoyed and delighted, her face softens and we join the queue on the platform, our numbers seemingly swelled to about twice the number we were on arrival.

The train is packed, not sure what happened there, and we struggle to find seats. Fortunately, Sian, who had the forethought to leave the pub before us, comes to our rescue and we join her at the end of a carriage in some very cosy seats with a couple of ladies named Sue and Val.

There is only a small table between Sue and Val, the window seats, nothing in between Mum and I, nothing for her to rest her pint on. She puts it on the small table while sorting herself out, but as the train pulls out of the station it slowly slips to the edge of the table and nearly deposits Boltmaker all over Val’s lap. Amazingly, Mum catches it just in time. Nothing wrong with those reflexes.

The journey is 1hr 40 minutes, and soon Mum is out of beer. She hasn’t eaten since breakfast, is three pints in and it’s 2.30pm. The next time I look over she is munching on something she’s found in her handbag.  It’s the All Bran.

Sian comes to the rescue with a welsh cake, which she is distributing up and down the carriage. Despite being peckish, Mum squirrels it away into the depths of her handbag and continues with the All Bran. I know it will surface at some point and be “just what she needed”.

I spy a man behind Mum arrive back at his seat with a bottle of beer. I laugh out loud at the audacity – how on earth did the fact that they were selling beer on the train escape Mum’s attention? I point it out, and she looks round sharp and berates the man for only getting himself one. The carriage is enjoying it.  The wife of the Chief is passing through and stops to chat to Mum, asking her if she’s having a lovely time. Mum is gracious and polite, but can’t help herself, mentioning that she’s out of beer and somewhere on the train they are selling it, but she doesn’t know where.

We start playing again, a WW2 song sheet we were handed the night before and we’re only halfway through Mademoiselle from Armetieres when the Chief himself arrives, with a bottle of beer for Mum.  Such a kind gesture, she is blown away. She thinks I’ve arranged it, but I don’t take the credit for this one and say it was all off his own back. She drinks the beer appreciatively and keeps the bottle as a memento. (PINT FOUR)

We pull into Pickering, say our goodbyes and our thank you’s and promise to see everyone later at the concert in the evening.   Mum needs the loo, but when I suggest the loo right in front of us at the station, she has other ideas. Half way up the high street she pauses and wonders out loud where she could go to the loo.  We happen to be right outside a pub called the Bay Horse, so I take the hint and suggest we go in.

Mum interrogates the Landlord about his hand pulled beer, and he recommends Tetleys. Bit of a busman’s holiday for Mum, but she goes with it anyway. (PINT FIVE) I install her in a corner of the lounge bar and leave her while I go back to our room to deposit the two Uke’s I’ve carried around all day.

When I return she is slightly belligerent. Turns out nobody in the bar has spoken to her in my absence. There is a couple sitting RIGHT NEXT TO HER, so close their arms are nearly touching, and she begins talking about them by saying “Don’t look now, but…”. She thinks they are rude for not making conversation with her while she was on her own.   She thinks it is because they are locals, and therefore don’t know what it’s like to be on your own in a strange pub.

I’m kind of with her in a way.  Not that I think people should go out of their way to speak to my Mum when she’s five pints in, especially if they haven’t had practise or read the handbook.   But it is true that the travelled will always be more chatty when it comes to being on a place on your own.  I travel a lot on my own, and can always tell the ones who’ve never stepped foot outside their own comfort zone. They have never experienced the feeling of being alone, and so therefore it doesn’t occur to them to go out of their way to talk to someone in a bid to make that person feel less alone.

NeverthelessI feel it’s not really our place to start dissing the locals on their home turf, so I warn Mum that she is getting cantankerous and suggest we make a move back to the White Swan.  I’ve already checked out the hand-pulled selection in the bar and think she will approve. I know from experience that the chances of Mum slowing up in order to make the concert tonight are slim, so I feel it’s probably a good move to get her closer to our hotel room now, while she can still walk up the hill.

After a lot of coaxing and the threat of us falling out, she finishes her pint and shrugs at the very people she’s been moaning about, as if suddenly they are her best friends and I’m dragging her away from them.

Up at the White Swan I finally relax. We get a nice spot in the corner of the bar where a couple of ukers are just leaving (we’re all over the blooming place).   From there Mum has a birds eye view of the rest of the bar, but can do the least damage, so to speak.

At the bar, there is Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, Black Sheep and Golden Best.  Mum is literally spoilt for choice. Perhaps wisely, she asks for the ABV of the beers, opting for Golden Best which at 3.5% is the lightest of the three, Landlord being the heaviest at 4.3. We settle down with a pint of that for her (PINT SIX) and I join her with a large gin & tonic.

There is a large party of girls who are finishing a late lunch, they are loud, a bit sweary, but clearly having a good time.  Mum and I chat about the day. She loved it. I am pleased. Whatever our differences have been over the last 38 years, I want the best for her.

It can’t have been easy for her, raising four children with a husband who was either away on a business trip or propping up the bar in the pub.  My father was a textile salesman, and worked for one of the large mills in Bradford, Drummonds. His territory was the Middle East and his business trips took him to the Lebanon, Beirut, Saudi, Kuwait. I remember he was never at home for my birthday in June, and very often was away for 6 weeks at a time.  We would all go up to Leeds Bradford Airport to see him off on a trip, we would watch him walk out onto the tarmac, board the plane for London and always knew where he was seated, as he would hold his newspaper up to the window. When he returned, his case would be full of gifts, electronics, toys, exotic sweets and usually, a doll in national dress for me if he’d been somewhere new. I was probably the only girl at my primary school who knew what the national dress was for a woman in Afghanistan, and that their faces were covered by something called a yashmak. As dolls go, it wasn’t the prettiest.

Up till the age of 8 I shared a bedroom with my two older brothers. Naturally we made a lot of noise in the morning, and at the weekends when Dad was trying to have a lie-in if you went too far he would fling the door open, wielding his impossibly large flip flop. My brothers got a wallop more often than I did, but I didn’t always manage to escape.

Back to the White Swan, and Mum who has sat opposite from me for most of the day, decides to share her findings with me.  She tells me I have three earrings in my right ear, but only one in my left. This is not news to me. She can’t remember me having them pierced, which I tell her was on Otley market around the age of 15.

The girls are enjoying themselves, and Mum, bored with my piercings, turns her attention to them.  She is bemused that there are 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9…9 girls and only 1 boy.  Is he a stripper? Wait, he’s taking his clothes off now.  I bet he’s a stripper. Now just see here, he can’t start stripping in the middle of a pub…

I look over. He’s taken his jacket off and sat down to join the girls.   I catch one of their eye, and explain that Mum is dying to know why there are 9 of them (girls) and only one boy. They laugh and scream that he’s gay.  Mum doesn’t exactly embrace homosexuality, preferring to believe that same sex couples are in fact just good friends, even if they share a bed together, a bit like Morecambe and Wise. She once got really cross, and I mean REALLY cross with me for intimating that my neighbours in London (both women in their 40’s with severe haircuts and comfortable shoes) were lesbians. Why did I have to be so coarse all the time? Why did I have to be so crude?  Why did I find being disgusting so funny, etc etc. I argued that there was nothing coarse, crude or disgusting about suggesting they were a lesbian couple, but she was having none of it and we didn’t speak for the rest of the night.

Fortunately tonight she either doesn’t hear the comment, or chooses to ignore it, and soon the whole party are marvelling at Mum’s story about the trains, ukuleles, lifeboats and beer. Turns out the birthday girl is from Leeds, her friends live in the surrounding suburbs, one girl is from Pudsey and another from Queensbury, just down the road from Mum.  We laugh that she can drop Mum off tomorrow instead of me. They are lovely, enjoying a 40th birthday weekend away in nearby lodges, and we exchange big hugs as they depart back to their hot tubs.

Next to join us in the bar are Allan and Kathie.  We’ve just got another drink when they join us, but they are kind enough to offer us one anyway. Mum has opted for another Golden Best, (PINT SEVEN) and, on the recommendation of the girl behind the bar, I’m having some hedgerow gin, made locally up in Malton. It’s very popular, she says, adding that some people like it with a slice of apple.

Allan and Kathie are from Berwick on Tweed, and are here to Uke, joining the train tomorrow. As we’re discussing accents, where we’ve lived etc they tell us an amazing story about how in 1986 they were travelling Belgium and living out of a camper van, picking fruit etc. The season was nearly over and they weren’t sure what to do with themselves, when they saw an advert for Babysitters in the bar they were in. They called the number from the payphone and went round to see the couple, who had two sons, aged 4 and 8.

The couple were leaving in two weeks to take a boat down the Nile, in Egypt, and needed someone to look after their boys while they were away. They engaged the services of Allan & Kathie without checking any references, and duly left 2 weeks later.  Allan & Kathie moved in, looked after the boys and didn’t hear from the Mum and Dad until 2 weeks later when they returned from their holiday.  Not a phone call, not a sausage. No communication whatsoever, just left their kids, home, cars etc with a couple they’d only just met and buggered off. That was 1986 for you.

We have a lovely time chatting, exchanging stories, but soon it’s time for them to go and get some food, they have a table booked up the road.

It’s clear by now that we’re not going to make the concert we have tickets for tonight.  Mum has been adamant all day that she is definitely going, but finally agrees with me that it might not happen for her and says that I should go on my own.  I could do, but I don’t want to leave Mum in the bar on her own, and she won’t leave the bar to go to the bedroom yet, so I miss the concert. I’m not overly fussed. It would have been nice, but it would have been a different night, and this one has been a lot of fun in other ways.

After Allan & Kathie depart, the dog people arrive.  She is limping on crutches, he has control of a large golden Labrador.  She tells me that on a walk last November, the dog (named Sunny) got overexcited and bowled into her leg from the side.  Instead of going down, she railed against it, and ended up ruining her knee. She’s just had a knee replacement. Well done Sunny.   They are joined by friends with a sprocker called Fraggle who jumps up on the seat next to Mum and a chocolate lab who had the same gum disease problem Rex had, and as a result can’t eat carrot sticks as they get lodged in his gaps.

My hedgerow gin has gone down very well, and I head up to the bar for another.  I ask Mum if she is sure she really wants another (I’ve been keeping count), and she says no. I breathe a sigh of relief, until she adds, “not of that”.  She drains her glass and asks what’s on offer again. Landlord, Boltmaker and Golden Best, I say. Oh, go on then, she says to the bar girl and me, I’ll have Landlord, as if finally agreeing to something we’d been asking her to do for ages. (PINT EIGHT)

The dog people depart for dinner in the next room, and it’s all quiet for a while. Then, we’re joined by a brother and sister, also here to play Uke on the train tomorrow. He lives in Strasbourg (France, I thought it was Switzerland) and she lives in Alice Springs.

They decided to meet up and play uke as they hadn’t seen each other for ages and it seemed like a quirky thing to do.   I introduce myself.  As they turn to Mum, he says “Pleased to meet you, I’m Mark” and she says “..and I’m Joy”.

Mum stares straight at her.  “And where’s the rest of it?” she asks.

“The rest of what?” asks Joy

“Your name” says Mum

“My name is Joy, that’s my name” says Joy, puzzled, and a little intimidated.

“Ahh, well.  My name’s Joyce” says Mum, triumphantly, “so I got two over on you there”.

It makes perfect sense to Mum, in fact I can tell she’s rather pleased with it, but the rest of us are struggling.

Thankfully, they are perfectly lovely with Mum, asking her questions, but as she’s on pint eight, she just uses the word Suuuuperrrrrrb a lot when asked for details of her day.

I have opted for a slice of apple in my hedgerow this time and it’s bloody lovely. Never had apple in gin before, but will do again.  After a short while chatting Joy and Mark leave (maybe to go in search of her two missing letters) and it’s just Mum and me. I decide it might be a good move to try and get some food inside Mum, neither of us have eaten since breakfast, unless you count the Bran on the train (not for me Mum, thanks).

It’s a this point that I realise that not only has Mum not eaten, but she hasn’t been to the loo since the Bay horse, and before that, she only went once in the Station. Which means that over 8 pints of ale, she’s only been to the loo twice. There are nights when I need the loo every half hour, the liquid running out of me as fast as I’m pouring it in, a bit like a dehydrated pot plant. I suggest she go to the loo, and say I’ll go in after her.

I order food and the bar girl asks if we want to eat in the restaurant.  I decide that would not be a good move, lots of very nice people have arrived in very nice clothes to spend a very nice evening in a very nice restaurant and none of them will be prepared for Mum’s eight pints. So we will stay in the bar, I say, and they duly cram cutlery, condiments, napkins and finally HUGE plates onto the narrow bar table.

Mum reappears from the loo and I follow her in.  The first thing I see is a nappy pin, spiked into the loo roll.  How odd, I think, taking it out and putting it on the back of the cistern. You don’t see nappy pins much anymore at all, anywhere, least of all sticking out of the loo roll in a hotel loo.

Back at the bar, I order Mum fish and chips – we were supposed to get them in Whitby, but well, you know the rest. She will have another Landlord, she tells me.  I oblige, but not before I tell her in my most serious nursey tone, that it will have to be her last as I’m tired. Thankfully, she agrees. (PINT NINE). I choose pork belly on mash with Savoy cabbage – it would literally be my last supper, and it doesn’t disappoint, it’s lush.   Mum has a good go at her massive haddock, but it only sustains minor injuries and we ask for the remainder to be wrapped up so we can take it home tomorrow.

Mum’s done in after eating, and falls silent.  She occasionally seems to be about to say something, but instead just smiles, shrugs and enjoys her thoughts.

Finally, at 9pm I call time on the evening, and suggest we adjourn to our room.  Mum hasn’t finished her pint and will only go to bed if I carry her drink up for her. Carrot and donkey, we get upstairs. Once there, I marvel at Mum’s drinking ability. I tell her she has just drunk the best part of 9 pints.

Don’t be ridiculous she says, I couldn’t drink 9 pints if I tried.

When I next look across, I realise she has fallen asleep in the chair.

Day 4 complete

Beer 9 pints (Mum)
Gin 10 (me)
Disagreement .5
Giggling fits 4
Patience levels 7