Monday 26^th October 2009

The weather has been glorious for the late season and walking in search of hotels (see previous entry: What to Do if Your Hotel Disappoints) I had to remove my Prada mac, which incidentally got stained at lunch. Speaking of lunch, the Gay Mother and I took it outside in the Plaza de Santa Ana. It was tapas. Anthony Mottram texted when we arrived: ‘I suppose you’ll be having that frightful tapas.’ He can’t bear it. Must sit down to a proper slap-up. But the Gay Mother who queens and sulks at the highest level if the food isn’t right has condemned all Madrid restaurants. In one she didn’t get enough membrillo (that’s quince paste) with her cheese, in another the veal escalope was received with withering silence, in a third, they brought the main course before she had finished the first and wouldn’t take it away again.

This is called efficient service. I have never seen it taken to this extreme before. Have you?

We went to inspect a place recommended by our hotel which looked bland and expensive as hotel recommendations always do. There are some famous restaurants in a residential district some way away and in the guide book it says you’ve got to book months in advance.

So there was nothing for it. We sit, lunch and dinner, crouched on brown-painted stools around small brown-painted tables in humble bars with every possible surface painted brown, having tapas, picking at the tortilla, the potato croquettes, the squid rings, the Padron peppers, discussing the standard of tomatoes available at home and whether china candlesticks can be seen in the drawing room.

Croquettes are my favourite of the tapas possibilities. The best ones were in Casa Ciriaco in Calle Mayor. There is a photograph on the wall of the mother of the king eating there, although it looks more to me that she is being tortured. Any minute now we’re off to Casa del Abuelo where the Gay Mother is looking forward to some deep-fried prawns.

So you see, we’re rather loving it. The Gay Mother is not short of a… She usually dines among antiques. But this is something different: an adventure.

Would every Poor Little Rich Gay survive?  I wonder. And what about Madrid in general? I had looked forward to wearing outfits. For the summer holiday you pack and pack and end up wearing mostly swimming trunks and a towel. At all other seasons you can display fully the cream of your wardrobe. But here, clucking along in tight black waxed jeans by J.Lindeberg (the ones I’m never going to wash. I’ve just had to take them off to check the spelling) and my new Topshop prep school blazer, I’m distinctly starred at. Nobody’s in the skinny, dolly look.

The Madrid frockage is nothing much. They’re all in subfusc, not offensive, but drab. The Gay Mother complains she stands out in her rose pink cardy and fuchsia pink jumper (yes, they do clash, but marvellous)

Just now I took a walk. I got as far as the Prada shop in the Salamanca district. That’s where the glamour’s supposed to be.

It was dreary, darling. Dull, bourgeois neighbourhood, not gleaming, no magic.

They’ve even done the Prada shop in brown, no Prada green and nothing much in it  – just a little grey jumper I’m sure I got from their Factory Shop near Arezzo years ago.

Poor Little Rich Gays might try Madrid, but you’d have to adapt. It could be good for you. Then you can go home to your own purring, honed, unbelievable home and metropolis.

Pot Plant at Hotel Urban. See 'What to Do if Your Hotel Disappoints'

The King's Mother Dining at Casa Ciriaco in Calle Mayor - or being Tortured

Shade of Brown a Favourite in Madrid