One For The Road sent a driver on something like this
Friday 16 March 2001 – Dinner At Mike & Marianna Smith’s Place In Kennington
I have written at length about me and Janie spending occasional evenings with Mike and Marianna, either at their place or ours. My favourite memory of those – sadly my last memory of seeing Mike, is this one:
There won’t have been music-making in 2001 – that element came later – but there will have been good food and convivial chat. I think, on that occasion, Janie drove and therefore drank little. Mike and Marianna evenings were not particularly boozy affairs, but they were very pleasant ones.
Saturday 17 March 2001 – Dinner At Doug & Paul’s Place In Streatham, Featuring The Duchess And “One For The Road”
Doug and Paul were a couple that Janie and Pauline had met on holiday together before Janie and I got together – presumably 10 years at least before this evening. Pauline had kept in touch with them and they invited the three of us to their house in Streatham for dinner. Their place was just a few blocks away from my parents place, but visiting my folks didn’t come into it.
What did come into it was the use of a chauffeuring service that Janie and I had previously used couple of times, named “One For The Road”. You booked the service to drive you home in your own car. The chauffeur would arrive at an appointed hour on a collapsible bike, which they would stow in the boot of your car while they drove you home.
There was only one problem with this service, which we encountered to our shame on this occasion; you had to pre-book the time of departure.
Janie thought 10:45pm would be ideal after a 7:00 arrival, but she hadn’t accounted for the perfect storm of Doug & Paul’s desire to show off every last feature of their new home, their painstakingly slow preparation/serving of food, together with Pauline’s classic ability to spin out every one of her many yarns when holding forth, interspersed with inter-course cigarettes a plenty.
Doug and Paul seemed to be luxuriating in showing us their feature-packed home and listening to Pauline’s fables.
Janie and I, although somewhat refreshed by nibbles and starters, were far from sated, foodwise. More than sated, interior design and Pauline-yarn-wise.
Janie dropped a couple of hints, before expressing significant concern, around 10:00, that our driver was arriving at 10:45 and that we hadn’t progressed yet to the main course.
Doug and Paul hurried themselves to finish preparing and then serve a main dish. The driver arrived while we were still eating that dish. We finished it hurriedly.
Thanks ever so much for dinner, but we really must go now,
said Janie.
But what about dessert?
blurted Doug…or Paul…or both.
The Duchess was a little disappointed. She no doubt had several more tales of her derring-do up her sleeve and had been looking forward to relating them over pudding, coffee and cigarettes.
We never saw Doug and Paul again.
I don’t think we ever used the One For The Road service again either.
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