When I hear it's someone's birthday, my question is always: how old does that make me?! And the answer is always the same too: old enough to know better, and certainly too old to stay up late having fun.
But when that birthday is Christine's [redacted]th, and the plan is a big weekend in New Orleans, what can I say? Which is how I found myself at a burlesque show after an evening of steak and cocktails, having spent the afternoon in a children's museum.
New Orleans is the next town along from Houston, a mere six-hour drive. The eastern stretch is through the Louisiana swamps, where the highway is on stilts and alligators swim around waterlogged stumps. Fortuitously, Jane from Vancouver was staying, so we took her too, which was excellent because Canadians improve everything and she could babysit.
Ah, New Orleans. It's like a dirty, French version of Las Vegas. We'd visited once before, the year after Katrina when it was a ghost town, and wandered its humid, historic streets in virtual silence. Ten years on and things are back to normal, with party time all the time and happy hour every hour. It was filthy and very smelly, thanks mostly to sewer work that was meant to be finished by Mardi Gras, but undeniably charming in all its ungentrified glory.
Hannah, Jane, and the rest of the adults embarked on an afternoon's gourmet food tour, while Pete and I filled up on fried shrimp (his new favourite, he tells me) and went to the kids' museum, which - despite his protests - I deemed more appropriate than the Museum of Death next to our hotel. Then Jane was left with Pete, popcorn, and Star Wars cartoons as Hannah and I did adult things, like eat, and talk with other adults about our kids and theirs.
Then a "surprise" by Vince meant we found ourselves in the front seats of a Halloween-themed burlesque show. This had me worried, due to my impeccable feminist credentials, but turned out to be far more fun than I'd feared, with less flesh on display than a Friday winter's night in Durham. I did have some stockings and a glove thrown at me, but it was a small price to pay. There was also a Michael Jackson dance medley that had to be seen to be believed.
We pushed our way home through the rowdy, drunk crowds (also reminiscent of our beloved North East of England) and the next morning, after a breakfast of beignets, were heading back west for the safety of the Texas border. What happens in New Orleans stays in New Orleans, apart from the memories of another unforgettable weekend with the Muckers.
What his Grandma has always called him.
Orleans entertainment, naturally.
Wandering the streets, finding...things like this.
In the "eye doctor" section of the kids' museum. Maybe the one about death would have been less scary.
See above.
Very proud of himself.
Bourbon Street, where it all happens (and I mean all).
Something to take the edge off for Hannah.
Babysitting at its finest.
It's the birthday girl!
And all her friends. Identities have been obscured to protect the innocent.
The most important meal of the day.
By the banks of the Mississippi.
St Louis's Cathedral, in a cleaner part of town.
Um...
The happy couple, enjoying a Bloody Mary, at 10am.
Someone else overindulging.
We made sure Jane was well-compensated for her immense childcare skills.
