The Landlady takes control of her self-control

Can someone explain to me why I can never go to Ikea without spending a minimum of £50, even if I don’t need anything, which I generally don’t? Equally, why, when I go and stay at my friend Katy’s in London, can I never manage to leave the next day without suffering from the Hangover Of Satan. My final bugbear is why I can never attend an ‘eat-all-you-like’ breakfast buffet without eating all I like, all I shouldn’t and a great deal of what I will almost certainly regret later. The final one is currently the most pertinent, as I am travelling a great deal and most trips seem to involve at least one hotel with an ‘all-you-can-eat’ breakfast. The best one ever – or the worst, as far as I was concerned – was the breakfast buffet by the Dead Sea in Jordan which, as well as offering all the usual delicacies, had the added temptation of unlimited Cava at breakfast time. I’m not an habitual morning drinker, but it’s surprising what the offer of a free bottle of Cava can do to one’s morals…

All of the above require self-control which, it would seem, unlike rolls and croissants from the ‘all-you-can-eat’ buffet stuffed in my handbag, I do not have a great deal of.

During the most recent half-term week, my self-control was put to the test on all three, with a series of trips and days out with The Small Daughter. One involved a night at Katy’s, another a night in the Premier Inn in Southampton (breakfast buffet included), swiftly followed by a rather hellish half-term trip to Ikea.

“I awoke the following morning feeling as fresh as the colloquial daisy”

The trip to Katy’s went rather well, because Katy was too tired to drink, which encouraged me not to. For the first time ever, I awoke the following morning feeling as fresh as the colloquial daisy. The trip to Ikea a couple of days later was fraught and peppered with people who’d perhaps spent too long frequenting restaurants of the ‘all-you-can-eat’ variety, who waddled along as if they were going for a country stroll. I was not in the mood for ‘browsing’ and only really needed light bulbs and kitchen cupboard handles.

If the huge queue for the single lift in the store wasn’t irritating enough, we realised, once we’d reached the bottom – both spiritually and physically – that we’d forgotten the door handles and had to go all the way back up.
Yet, in spite of the fact that The Small Daughter tagged along behind me taking things out of the trolley as I put them in, muttering ‘self-control mother, self control…’ I still managed to spend £23. Still, £27 less than all my previous minimums.

As for the ‘all-you-can-eat’ breakfast buffet at the Premier Inn, I’d rather not talk about that at the moment. Suffice it to say that my self-control had run out at this point and the resulting food mountain is still lodged very firmly in my digestive tract. But two out of three ain’t bad…