After the worst night of non-sleep I've had in years, me and Audders were up early. I had a shower and we headed out to the Portrait Gallery via Regent Road. We had a coffee first then went to see the Ponte City exhibition again. Mum approved, but I saved the best til last for her and we looked at the BP Portrait Awards finalists. I took mum to the Grays degree show a few years ago when some friends were graduating. It was a shitty time for our family as my uncle had recently been killed in an accident and I hoped it would take her mind off of it. She's always loved the idea of painting and does occasionally do little projects to keep herself amused and after the degree show, she kept saying how inspired it had made her. I felt happy to have been with her at something that made her feel positive during a really dark time and when me and Malcy the Portrait Awards a few months ago, I knew mum would be astounded by the detail of the paintings. She absolutely loved it and it was nice to discuss with her what she liked about things and what she didn't like. It was just great, basically and I'm glad she got to see it. Hopefully she'll get the paints out again soon.

We found out yesterday that when she booked her train tickets, the guy at the station had booked her onto the wrong train so we didn't have as much time together as we'd hoped. So I cancelled our table we'd booked at Pomegranate for dinner and we went there for lunch instead. It was a huge meal and we had to catch a tram to our gin distillery tour because we were so full. The tour was good, a fair bit more information than we had at the Doors Open introduction one. Mum said it felt a little rushed, though, but it was only 45 minutes and that was stuck to. I think because there were only six of us on the tour, fewer people were there to ask questions, so it finished exactly on time. We headed to Red Squirrel afterward for a drink before walking through the Gardens to the station. We saw mum onto her train and caught a bus home. I walked to the flat and felt sad that she was gone. I had a nap for about forty minutes when I got in and then we headed out to Al's to celebrate his birthday. His friends were all great and it was a pretty hilarious night. We walked all the way home from the opposite end of town. It's late.