late nights

Mol had her latest night EVER in her nearly 7 years of existence last week. Courtesy of Granny Darling who ventured up from dark Hampshire to The Big Stinky Smoke of London Town and treated us to a night at The Snow Queen. A night of dazzling glitter and sequins and pointed toes and painted faces and men in tights proudly flaunting their nether-regions splendidly emotive music a sweaty conductor in a cummabund that looked like it may explode off into the First Violins at any given moment strawberry ice-creams wine gums chocolate rolls (cadburys) (of course) a pint of orange juice a wide-eyed Mol with every new dancer that leapt slid twirled plied lifted crept hopped skipped and jumped onto the gigantic Colliseum stage.
The dancing was gob smacking. Little Kay who is one third of the main characters - not a big man - was on stage nearly every scene lifting and sweating and lifting and spinning - like the ever-ready-bunny but more together about his position in life; and our seats were so incredibly close to the stage that apart from being at risk of his sweat spinning off and giving our wine gums a salty coating we could actually see his muscles rippling under the strain of heaving the waify ballerinas about for nearly 3 hours.
Usually we're in seats so far from the stage that its more like watching multi-coloured fleas hopping around a distant tray of colour. Even bino's don't help in those circumstances. But on this night - Mol could have hopped from her seat, over the lady with the jingly bangles and joined Kay and his eternal heavings. Magic. At one point Mol said "Look Mummy!" I thought something very exciting had been observed. "Look! It's the Snow Queens ZIP" as though Snow Queens and Ballerina's [period] were exempt from such mundane clothing accessories.
At 9.30pm when I realised Mol was in it for the long haul - and with another act to go it dawned on me that somehow we'd have to get home, through the rest of the theatre-rush-hour and it dawned on me that an over exited over tired over sugared 7 year old may not find the piss-heads on the Piccadilly Line very fun at 11pm. So I craftily texted Husband who obligingly - a loving gift - booked us an Addison Lee which was waiting for us outside the Colliseum at 10.25pm steaming with heat and what felt like at the time, the softest seats in the world.
Mol was so over-wine-gummed that she didn't fall asleep in the car; instead a long discussion was held about who I would want to dance if I was in the Snow Queen, who Granny Darling would dance if she was in the Snow Queen, and much debate was given to Mol as to which character she'd play: the conclusion, at 10.52pm was that she'd be the Snow Queen herself, because she's the main part so the most important and she got flowers at the end, and also because she gets to wear the biggest spangliest diamonte tiara any of us had ever seen in our lives.

Good news that my plea for the snow to melt worked, huh? I'd say it's pretty much down to me, entirely. If I hadn't done my plea we'd still be sliding down the hill and breaking our skulls every five minutes. Seriously. Every five minutes.