Restaurants

Restaurant

Deborah Ross

24 November 2007

The Pheasant, Ballinger Common, Great Missenden; tel. 01494 837236

He has, it turns out, bought four acres of beech and oak in the Chilterns, Buckinghamshire. Would I like to visit it? ‘You bet!’ I lie. It is always a testing moment when a gentleman shows a lady his wood, but it is a very nice wood, full of wood, with a view over wheatfields. ‘Couldn’t you look at the view forever?’ he says. ‘Yes,’ I lie, even though I don’t really get it; am thinking: ‘But you’ve seen it now, love. Move on.’ He will, I know, be happy camping here with his axe and his saw and his bivvy bag and his storm kettle and all those dry things that will get wet and then will never get dry again, because that is what camping is like. (You can tell this, even from a heated car.) You may ask, in the light of all this, what has kept us together all these years, especially as the sex isn’t that great. I think it’s because he respects my interests while I respect his, or at least I would do if only they were more interesting and involved a lot more shopping.

Anyway, we mooch around his wood for a bit, during which I am keen to appear enthusiastic: ‘Oh, look, a beech, darling. See it? It’s between that beech and the other one.’ I do not wish to rain on his parade, not that he minds the rain as I do. That’s the other thing about camping, isn’t it? The rain, which will travel thousands of miles against prevailing winds just to drench a tent. I’m sure of it. Please don’t get me wrong, though. I have nothing against nature and love it on television, but nature ‘au naturel?’ That’s a different thing altogether.

So we look about the wood, and then decide it’s time for lunch. He’s made up because his wood is equidistant between the Chilterns’ Camra Pub of the Year and the runner-up, but I’m not convinced by their menus, which I’d looked up online and appeared to feature gammon and pineapple. (All I will say about gammon with pineapple is: why?) I suggest The Pheasant at Ballinger Common (Great Missenden), which is just a bit further up the road and looks more interesting, foodwise.

The Pheasant is beautifully situated opposite the village cricket field, and has a conservatory built alongside where the food is served, as so many pubs now do. The entrance to the pub is approached by walking alongside the conservatory, and as I look in one diner looks up from his party and that diner is Jim Davidson. Honestly, it is. My first thought is: well, if it’s good enough for Jim Davidson, does that mean we should try elsewhere? Actually, that’s mean, as is the way many people treat Jim Davidson these days. Seriously, anyone would think he was a racist, sexist, wife-beating, bankrupt homophobe who also seems to have it in for the disabled and was never very funny anyway. It’s terrible how some people can get other people all wrong. Look at Heather Mills, the bitch.