Angelina Melwani and Mini-Me float like butterflies around St Albans .
10.30am on a Sunday in St Albans . Mini-Me, her schoolmate and the rest of their Karate class had just wowed the gathered parents with their collective ninja prowess at their Karate Grading - which is like an exam type thing where they perform routines in front of several Senseis (or teachers) in order to attain a higher level.
“Can we go now?” I asked Mini-Me when she had done her bit.
“No Mum, I want to watch everyone else and wait for the certificates and see if I got my orange belt!” Not only had I transported her there at an unholy hour on a Sunday morning, I now had to stay for the WHOLE THING just so that she could enjoy the satisfaction of her hard work and achievement.
Two and a half hours later, my eyes were wild with the desperate boredom that can only be brought on by the mandatory tedium of sitting through scores of kids and grownups –none of whom are your kid and none of whom bear even the slightest resemblance to Ralph Macchio - perform their repetitive Karate moves with home-counties-accented exclamations sounding more like polite waiters offering pizza to footballers. “Zidan Margeree?” The compulsion to leave that this instigated was paralleled only by a play I saw recently about a victim of terminal disease in South Africa
Edna’s daddy (my friend’s husband) had brought along his new ipad, loaded with kids games and headphones to amuse their son, and even being allowed to stroking that while marvelling at its biscuit-like tactility didn’t cheer me up. It was only when said ipad started making involuntary noises after the audience had already had a dressing down from Sensei for creaking in their chairs too much, that I started shaking with hysterical laughter and had to go to the car to listen to Classic FM to calm down for a bit. Finally it was over. Mini-Me emerged beaming and victorious clutching her orange belt.
To celebrate (actually, because we were in The current tropical butterfly house was a fraction of the size that the Biome will be but impressive enough. We tiptoed through it inch by inch, wondering at all the pretty petal-like butterflies, huge and small, floating around us. I tried sometimes to keep absolutely still so that one would land on me, and handed Mini-Me the camera so that she could capture the moment. She, however, was a whirlwind of subdued hysteria, which meant that no butterfly would land within a yard of me, let alone on me and if it did, she would have more likely screamed in terror than photographed it. She yelped and dodged as though avoiding custard pies – nay bullets, and continued in this vein long after we had exited the butterfly house and left them inside. We looked around at the designer gardens and happened upon a wonderful quote that likened butterflies to children’s dreams un-tethered from sleep.
The next day we had to go back to Butterfly World to retrieve my glasses which some kind soul had handed in. This presented the perfect opportunity for me and Mini-Me to brunch at the Waffle House a short drive away, which I had wanted to do on Sunday (but couldn’t due to Karate torture). We shared a waffle breakfast and Mini-Me, though excited about yummy food and enjoying the scenery, set as it is in an old Mill by a river, was slightly disappointed that its cuisine was not based on Birds Eye potato waffles. As waffly versatile as they are, I’m not sure how great they would taste with maple syrup and cinnamon bananas!Info Box:
Butterfly World,
The Waffle House, Kingsbury Watermill, St Michael’s Street,
