I’m due to dine out with a couple of people who I’m sure don’t want to be named, so let’s call them Bob and Jim, even though their real names are Tobyn and Leaf. I let them choose the restaurant. I do this not because it’s one less thing for me to have to think about, which would be selfish, but because I am a generous-natured, generous person famed for my generous generosity. Ask anyone, apart from those who might actually know me and might hold a grudge for no good reason whatsoever.
Anyway, Bob and Jim, who are Tobyn and Leaf, but in disguise, eventually come back with The Ledbury. I look up The Ledbury and it is in Notting Hill, west London. ‘Are you sure?’ I ask. ‘We do have some very nice restaurants here in Crouch End, you know.’ They are sure, they say. Drat. As you know, I hate to leave my small patch of north London. I am, I think, the least adventurous person ever. I once went to New York and all I saw was the inside of my hotel room, because I was too frightened to leave it. I’ve given up on family holidays because it’s like saying, ‘Where shall we spend too much money this summer so we can all get on each other’s nerves and come back hating each other?’ Notting Hill isn’t exactly on the other side of the world (although try telling that to my minicab driver, who attempted to go via Walthamstow), but I still feel like a snail being pulled off a rock. Thanks, Bob and Jim. You do this to me, yet I’m still sufficiently generous not to give away your true names, which are Tobyn and Leaf.
So Notting Hill it is then, but not before I’ve dosed up on travel sickness pills and Temazepam, which do help to take the sting out of a journey.
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