Posh Sister slums it in Belfast in pursuit of quality cashmere
If the Posh Sister and I had rocked up to a caravan park off a ring road somewhere, she couldn’t have been more disappointed by what I had booked for us for our annual holiday to Belfast. I thought I had done alright, considering that our first choice of five star accommodation was not available for the Sunday night, just the Monday, so I found myself booking us into another hotel for the first night.
Yet despite its famous reputation, the Posh Sister, who only seems to be getting posher as the years go by, expressed abhorrence at the hotel the moment she set her designer-shod feet inside the hotel. There was no-one to bring the bags up to the room. And, to add insult to injury, the ‘package’ I had booked included ‘cocktail vouchers’ which she promptly assured me I was in charge of. ‘ That’s more your kind of thing, hanging onto coupons cut out of magazines’, she said as we horsed our own baggage, real as well as emotional, up to the room.
Sure, she only nearly collapsed when we entered the ‘smaller than expected’ room, which was perfectly adequate but only had one bed. There were a lot of bad words from her, posh and all as she is, as she called me for all the names of the day for booking ‘ this wretched place’. She feared a night of ‘farting, snoring, scratching and wriggling’ from me in the same bed, though I had to point out on more than one occasion, I wasn’t an actual pig.
I asked her whether she would rather slum it here or be back in her house in Dublin looking after the two childer and no en suite bathroom at all at all?
I also told her we could look forward to a very nice dinner in a hipster place that I had booked down the road. But first it was cocktail time and, despite the extensive list in front of us, the wee bar man who came to take our order soon changed his accommodating tune when I waved the vouchers at him, telling us we could get a martini or a Cosmopolitan - and none of the rest of the list - for ‘free’. It’s not like I hadn’t already paid for it and his demeanour only added to the Posh Sister’s general annoyance at being treated as one of the hoi polloi.
The dinner venue was much more up her street, with the hipster vibe ensuring the sister relaxed for the first time, as the waiters fawned over her, laughing at her ‘witticisms’ and the craft beer cheered her immensely. Indeed, she anaesthetised herself sufficiently that she cared not that Miss Piggy was in the bed with her that night.
Her good mood didn’t last long, as the following morning I broke the news to her that you have to queue up for the breakfast buffet. She told me she would rather do without as she couldn’t possibly face putting bread into the toaster herself, standing there while it went around and landed out toasted onto your plate. I thought it was fun.
Checking out, she affected the stance of a woman who was preparing to run away from Aleppo. ‘Never again’, she muttered, as we headed into the city. And, of course, instead of having a good root around Penneys and Dunnes flagships stores, she baulked at the idea and marched herself, and me, over to the House of Fraser in search of what turned out to be a most elusive cashmere cardigan.
I dread to think of the number of miles I walked, tramping after the Posh Sister and wondering whether anyone really actually needed a cashmere cardigan. She scowled at me: life is too short not to wear cashmere, but it was proving very difficult to source one, despite the number of posh shops visited. It ended up that desperation for cashmere meant a trip to Marks and Spencer’s where she handed over a little under €100 for the cardigan, bemoaning the ‘grade of cashmere’ every step of the way. Next week: The Posh Sister goes from jail to a five star suite.