A Mother’s Day treat at Westfield

It had been a while since I had taken my mum out for the day, and with Mother’s Day coming along, and my brother heading over from Dublin to visit London for the weekend, we both decided to take her out. Westfield contacted me, and had asked to treat my mum out at the shopping centre using a gift card very kindly given to me. I jumped at the opportunity. We drove there by car and I was amazed by how incredibly sophisticated the car park is. It has a park assist system using red/green LED indicators to tell you where there are spaces. Extremely handy – particularly on a busy day.

After parking the car, I took my mum to have her hair cut at Supercuts. I had originally intended to take her to Toni & Guy as I always have my hair cut at one of its salons, as the results are usually delightful. My mum preferred Supercuts so we booked in there for a shampoo, cut and blow dry. After an hour, she came back looking like a brand new woman – younger, with shorter, voluminous looking hair and curls!

Now it was time for some shopping, after all we were at a shopping centre and it would simply be wrong to leave without indulging in some retail therapy. The first shop my mum asked for, was M&S (Marks and Spencer). It has been mother’s favourite high street brand for decades. We had a quick look around in The Village (my fault, I love a bit of luxury) before going to M&S. Rather than take the risk of choosing and buying her presents she may not like, I knew it would be better to let her have a good browse around and pick her own gifts. She chose a pair of beige trousers, and faux snakeskin purse. Job done.

I left her alone with my brother for a short while to go around the shopping centre to snap some photos. It was a good opportunity for mum and my brother to spend a bit of time alone. Taking the photos proved to be a lot of fun as there were many shoppers smiling and making peace signs (as you can see in a couple of photos above) at me. Then I met a very random woman who was working there, in the most random way, who turned out to be a friend of another friend I have on Twitter. So bizarre! We all had a laugh about it.

When I got back to my mum and brother, we carried on having a look around the shopping centre until mum spotted a few things she liked at Isaaki, a jewellery company. She was particularly charmed by this one pearl necklace that had caught her eyes, and asked if I liked it. I asked her to try it on first, and I have to say that it did look rather wonderful on her. I bought it and she told me she would always wear it.

By now it was 7.10pm and we had a reservation at The Meat and Wine Co for 7pm. Gosh, we were all very hungry and were looking forward to eating. As we walked in, we notice that there was a queue of perhaps 15 people. Thank goodness I had made the reservation because we were ushered to our table upstairs straight away without having to wait. It looks beautiful inside. Intimate. Wonderful, stylish decor and a high ceiling. A waitress was assigned to look after us – she came over to politely introduce herself to us with a huge grin. Her name was Lidia and she was an exceptional waitress. So much so, I insisted on leaving some comments praising her work and did so using the comments card. You should have seen her face – she was so happy. She dealt with every request we made throughout our meal with speed and efficiency, and always gave me a glance with a smile as she walked past just to let me know she was there if I needed anything. The food itself was most delicious. My brother ordered some steak ribs and chips. I had some burger and chips, while mum had chicken and chips. The manager also paid me a visit to say a few kind words to me – I was extremely impressed and look forward to returning again in the future.

When the day had nearly ended, my mum had tears from her eyes. Tears of joy. I gave her a hug. She had really, truly enjoyed a day of pampering. My brother and I had fun too, so thank you Westfield – from the bottom of my heart. Special thanks also to Meat and Wine Co, Carluccio’s, and The Real Greek for the lovely bottle of wine. It is a day to remember.