Tonight my mum and I went to The Lowry in Salford to see Opera North’s production of The Marriage of Figaro, and very splendid it was too. The original plan had been for Jude and I to go see it, but a yarn festival in Edinburgh turned out to be more appealing. No problem, it was a good opportunity for me to take my Mum out — and fortuitously it was the day before Mother’s Day.

By the time we were leaving, the day had seemed to have flashed by.

Jude and Debbie had left for Edinburgh at 9am. I cracked on and did some coding for the 3d project for a few hours while the children played video games. I appreciate that I should have probably been doing some awesome parenting, but I had stuff that I wanted/needed to do — which probably makes me sound like a terrible parent. I squeezed in a walk by heading into town to get some soup for lunch. This worked fine, and I had the children make Mother’s Day cards (for their Nan) while I was out walking. I thus avoiding being sucked into the creative process and ensured that the work was all their own.

Lunch seemed to take forever and by the time I was tidying up, there wasn’t enough time to go to the gym with all the associated rigmarole and then get back to pick up Mum on time. Somehow I had lost an hour somewhere, and as I think back, all I did was take about 15 minutes longer than I’d planned on a handful of things.

So I grabbed the weights and resistance bands and did my exercises at home. There were some exercises that weren’t appropriate at home. I couldn’t really do the pull ups nor the tricep dips, so they’re saved for my next trip to the gym. 40 minutes later I looked like a wreck, but a wreck with enough time to leave the children with Dad and take Mum to Salford.

We ate at a place called Damson in Media City. We chose from the set / pre-theatre menu and the food was delicious. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to really relax and take our time because we had to be back over at the Lowry. This also meant that I couldn’t try their tasty desserts, which looked very tempting… although the one that had caught my eye was a vodka chocolate and pecan cake thing, which sounded amazing but was off-limits because of the pecan. The cheese platter looked tasty too… *quiet sob*

I have a real soft-spot for opera and Opera North. When I was at Leeds I used to sneak off and get the cheapest of the cheap seats and watch from behind a column in the upper-upper circle. I loved it. I loved stepping into the theatre with the sound of the orchestra warming up before a performance and the terrifying sheer drop down from the very highest, furthest back seats. It was my guilty pleasure, away from James, the Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets. I’d rock up wearing the most ridiculous baggy, flared jeans and sporting a Manc bowl haircut and then be in tears as the heartbroken leading lady would lament love lost. I still love it, although when you’re 46 years old it’s less of a guilty pleasure. Unfortunately, Jude doesn’t like it and so I’ve been to very few over the past 19 years, but I made a decision to try and go to some more — even if that means going by myself (which is looking likely)

Having said that, tonight I was joined by my Mum and she seemed to really enjoy the show. It’s not hard to enjoy, given the quality of all the performers and the number of well-known tunes. I even thought that the set was brilliant, despite the reviews that I’ve seen from people complaining about sight lines, we could see everything perfectly from our seats.

We don’t have anything else lined up just yet, but I’ll keep my eyes open. Instead, we have Anything Goes booked for Tuesday night, in Liverpool, which will be quite a different experience I’m sure.