Like swimming in beef Oxo and going after the wrong buoy 2

Some people think that working for yourself means total control over your time and activities but they are oh so very wrong. With a clear diary from 1pm onward on the Friday afternoon, bags packed (being a swimmer means you don’t travel light) and lots of high carb snacks for energy so I could easily dip in during the journey up to Stockton, I was contending with an easy morning of telephone interviews before jumping in the car to go and pick up my swimming chum. Interviewing in itself is not so difficult, a bit like writing - once you get into it it’s interesting and can be quite fun. But my final candidate gave me a bit of a headache because I just could not formulate my thoughts in such a way that provided at least a little balance to notes I had made about the poor chap. When I read them back I realised I had given him a bit of a panning. What’s more, this particular candidate had contacts in the firm for which I was interviewing and as the time ticked on and my brain started to grind to a halt with the effort I got a call to ask where the notes were. Grimacing to myself and feeling my palms started to sweat with the pressure of being late but having to get the interview notes off before I could go, I inflicted a few sharp slaps around the head and did a dozen star jumps in the hallway in an effort to get the blood circulating around my brain.  This rather disconcerted next doors cat which was wandering past at the time. Back at my desk with new found vigor and my eye on the clock I bashed out a few more sentences for a suitably upbeat finish and sighed with relief as I hit the send button. Off the notes went into the ether. I was a few minutes behind schedule sure, but nothing that couldn’t be caught up on the way.  And then I made the mistake of picking up the phone when it rang.

Like swimming in beef Oxo and going after the wrong buoy 1

It was a small mistake to make. Sending my entry forms and fees off to Loughborough for the British Open Water Championships 2009 suggested, at least to my rather befuddled and overloaded mind, that the swim – 3k of it – would be somewhere in the vicinity around Loughborough way. It had needed a bit of a wiggle to get my entry in before the closing date but with the prospect of a 5k sea race at the Europeans in September, getting my toes wet in a lake in Loughborough over a reasonably manageable distance seemed a fair strategy. Except the swim wasn’t in Loughborough (why oh why don’t I read the small print) and it wasn’t in a lake. It turned out, because luckily someone did read the small print and told me, that my destination was not Leicestershire but the County of Durham. When I looked at the map I found that Stockton upon Tees (yes, that’s right) is a flipping long way north. As I allowed this small but crucial piece of information to sink in whilst sitting on the edge of the pool during a breather from our training session, I wondered if I should pull out, making humblest apologies for being such a dimwit. But, I decided, nothing ventured nothing gained and feeling better for my ebullience I dived into the water and watched my vision blur as my goggles rose slowly to the top of the pool unfortunately loosing contact with my head in the process. With a sigh I tightened the elastic, stuck them back on and wondered whether this was a sign. As it so happens it was.

No. 7 - Eat at the Ivy - RATING

5 – you can’t miss this, MAKE IT HAPPEN

4 – fab experience worth the time and money

3 – you may get something out of it

2 – not worth taking time out for

1 – take this off your list

OVERALL RATING FOR THIS EXPERIENCE 4/5

• Would I recommend this as a NeverTooLate experience for someone like me? Yes
• Would I recommend this as a NeverTooLate experience for anyone? A qualified affirmative.  Cost and value are relative and some might consider the price of the lunch prohibitive at £116.72 for two courses, a bottle of wine and coffee for two people.  I think it was worth it and I'll go back again.  Though whether I will ever manage to get a table for dinner at a time that doesn't necessitate me taking my duvet is another matter. Hence the 4/5 rating.

No. 7 - Eat at the Ivy - update no.6

My entrance into The Ivy on this occasion was a little more low key than on my previous visit I am glad to report.  Having learnt my lesson this time I had worn more suitable footwear and so forestalled the chance of skidding around the vestible of the restaurant once again like bambi on ice.  Said footwear (cowboy boots from R-Soles on Kings Road) were the ideal choice at 8am at 11 degrees C but as the day had progressed the temperature had risen and combined with a half mile walk in 21 degrees C, I was rather hot and bothered.  My feet were swelling nicely and I could feel a blister starting.  I dropped my jacket with the very nice lady who was looking after the cloakroom and wondered if it would be terribly bad form to sit and have lunch in my vest and decided it probably was this being England and all.  So looking slightly crumpled around the edges and feeling a bit hot under the collar I followed the Maitre d' to our table for two.  I had booked the table for 2.30pm which was the last sitting available for lunch and worried that we'd be the last guests of a shift that was ready to go home, but man, the place was still rocking.  The buzz of conversation and laughter created a welcoming atmosphere and as the afternoon light streamed in through the diamond shaped panes of the stained glass windows I thought what a wonderful place it was to be and with time for a proper catchup with my brother to boot.  The Ivy is so well known that it is easy to assume that it part of the same stable of pretentious and personality free restaurants that litter the upper echelons of 'best places to eat in London' listings.  But it is a friendly, relaxed and inclusive little place that feels like a good local, though one you have to be quick off the blocks (think Michael Phelps) to get a table at.  My brother and I were sitting eating at 2.30pm because for the life of me I couldn't move quick enough to get an evening table at a sociable enough time that would at least allow for a moderate period of digestion before you hit the sack. At least coming at lunch time meant we could have three courses, wine and coffee and laugh in the face of indigestion.   Perusing the menu it was a pleasure to see it was choc-a-block with dishes I'd have been happy to see infront of me and even eat and all at prices that once you'd got the bill didn't make you feel like you'd just been frogmarched at knife point to a cash dispenser and forced to hand over your life savings. In the end it proved just too hard to make a choice and so I resorted to that age old tactic for making a decision - I closed my eyes, let my finger hover over the page and decided that whatever it was pointing to when it came down would be my lunch.  I do like creamed spinach, but perhaps not as a main course.   With hunger pangs kicking in, the waiter politely hovering and trying not to look like he thought I was an idiot or that he wanted to go home, I decided to settle for the Black Sea Bream.  Matt had fishcakes.  We both decided that a bottle of Saint Veran 2002 would be the ideal accompaniment to both and as my Simpsons on the Strand Vodka Martini cloud was starting to dissipate, it seemed the right time to top it up with a fine white wine.  What a lovely time we were having.       

No. 7 - Eat at the Ivy - update no.5

I left Simpsons on the Strand at about one forty five walking on a vapour cloud of vodka martini which somehow made the world a softer, more gentle place. I’d allowed myself a generous twenty or so minute amble down the Strand heading toward Leicester Square tube where I was due to meet my lunch partner at ten past two. Heading across the Strand and dodging the traffic with a little less urgency than earlier in the day then cutting up through Bedford Street and into Chandos Place, I turned north into St Martins Lane and into the midst of theatre land finding myself nimbly avoiding the matinee queue for Calendar Girls which stretched down the road for a very long way. I strolled slowly, enjoying the ambience of London’s West End on a sunny afternoon, stopping once in a while to gaze in the windows of the various shops such as Freeds where I had bought my tap shoes oh so very long along. They still languish on the shoe rack under the stairs with my golf shoes and riding boots non of which get much of an airing these days. At Leicester Square tube I spotted my brother after some concentrated checking out to start with of guys in their twenties because I always forget that my little brother is now grown up. In fact he is almost forty years old but I still can’t quite make that leap of time and when I think of him he is always young and has a full head of hair. But I did spot him in the end (though checking out the younger guys was kind of a nice pass-time) leaning up against the entrance to the tube further down the road, wearing very dark sunglasses and looking kinda cool. We headed up Charing Cross Road, turned into Litchfield Street and the Ivy was upon us before we knew it. It’s a most strange location that I can never quite pinpoint in my mind and when I come upon it I always feel a bit Alice having fallen down the rabbit hole and finding herself suddenly in Wonderland.