Thank goodness that's over

I'm back from London and exhausted. Not from rushing around or doing a lot, no... the reason I'm exhausted is I've had to bite my tongue and sit on the swear words I've wanted to scream for the last 48 hours.

I actually had a wonderful time with my friend Suky on Saturday night. After a long train journey it was great to sit down at Yo Sushi and spend 3 hours chatting and catching up. We've known each other for almost 30 years when we met over pregnancy bumps before we produced our No. 1 Sons and have met up when we can ever since.

Yesterday was a different story. It all started with the egg boiling situation at breakfast when my mother told me I should just put the water on to boil and turn it off for 3 minutes and my boiled eggs would be fine. Yes, I said, as long as you want a 3 minute egg.

For the last 45 years (when I left my parental home) I have perfected the art of boiling an egg to the way I like to eat it, which is hard except for the very centre which is a touch runny - 7.5 mins for a medium sized egg and 8 mins for a large sized egg just in case you're interested. At no point would I ever touch any egg that had only been in hot water for a mere 3 minutes. My mother almost had a fit, but it was Mother's Day so I held my tongue, left my eggs in the pan for the required time, ate them at super quick speed and got out of the kitchen as fast as I could.

Then my brother and his wife and her son came over for champagne before going for lunch. My aunt also turned up wearing a jumper completely covered in moth holes. I didn't know whether to have a quiet word with her, but before I could my mother turned on her with a supercilious tone and told her in no uncertain terms what she thought of said jumper. My aunt retorted, 'well at least my curtains aren't black with dirt!' At which point my mother told her to fuck off.

After my aunt left we all went off to Langan's Brasserie. The idea being that my brother and I would pay for my mother and my brother's wife would be paid for by her banker son. There wasn't enough room in the banker son's car so my brother and I walked while my mother and my brother's wife got driven there. There was nowhere to park so banker son took the car all the way back to my mother's, parked and walked back!

Meanwhile we chose wine (they didn't have it), chose another bottle (it was off) and then eventually had our glasses filled (third time lucky) while we waited for the banker son's return. We then chose our meals. 20 minutes later we discovered the waiter had managed to mess up our order as my and my mother's choice of spinach souffle turned up but the other starters didn't. We had to start otherwise the souffle would collapse. My brother complained and we got our first bottle of wine free.

Then the main course. Poor waiter managed to mess that up too. I think he was having a very bad day as he didn't smile once, or apologise or anything. My mother wasn't amused. Neither was my brother's wife. I'm afraid the banker son and I started to have hysterics until he told me he didn't want to be a banker but a politician or a journalist. I'm afraid that brought me up short and the laughter died. I did manage to smile... just!

I won't go into the rest of the day. Suffice it to say it didn't get better.

Today started off badly because my mother thought the meeting we were attending was at 2 pm and not at 9.30 am as the rest of us knew. She was not amused... again. And so the day went on until I got on the train with a huge sigh of relief to head to the fog bound Scottish Borders.

I'm now home, drinking wine and hoping that by writing all this down I can forget it all and never have to think about it again.