Every Christmas my good friend Helen and I have a pre-Christmas lunch at the beautiful Ivy restaurant in Tunbridge Wells,  It is rather an extravagant treat but we both work hard all year and agree that we deserve the occasional expensive cocktail.  Today didn’t get off to a very good start as my boiler was broken and we had no hot water or central heating.  British Gas came out surprisingly quickly and managed to fix the issue but I was half-frozen by the time I left home. Helen and I were catching the train and she waiting was at the station wearing the most beautiful pair of caramel coloured knee-length suede boots from Sosander. “Did you spray those with water repellent” I asked Helen. “No”, she replied, “they’ll be fine”. Cut to a couple of hours later when I am blotting an enormous water stain on the toe of her brand new boots with a tissue.

We had booked a table for twelve thirty and The Ivy confirmed that the table was reserved for an hour and a half. I understand that it is their busiest time of year and it must be somewhat tricky to tactfully move patrons along without appearing rude but the constant, not so subtle nudges, were just too much. We arrived about five minutes early and had barely sat down and had not even opened our menus when we were asked what we wanted to eat. We asked to be left for five minutes but about a minute later we were asked again. We both ordered the aforementioned pricey cocktails, mine was some sort of candy-floss confection and Helen’s was gin and cranberry, both wonderful and very strong. As we had to speed-eat we didn’t bother with a starter and both had the goose and turkey shepherds pie with a side order of broccoli, absolutely delicious and a chocolate bombe for desert which tastes like a melted Crunchie bar, a little sickly and it made me very thirsty. The plates were whisked away within a millisecond of us taking the last mouthful and the waiter told us they needed the table, this was an hour and twenty minutes after we’d arrived. The bill was brought over without us asking, clearly a very efficient system. The waiter proffering the card machine did not utter a word or make any eye contact whatsoever, it was really quite rude. I think next year we will go somewhere a little more relaxed. One cocktail, the shepherd’s pie, broccoli and chocolate bombe came to £51 each so certainly not cheap but not ridiculously expensive either.

After lunch we visited Hooper’s department store as Helen wanted to browse their Christmas shop. Instead of being on the ground floor it took a bit of detective work to find and it was a little disappointing. They had a lot of fabric decorations which had been overstuffed and were split at the seams, clearly some quality control issues on the part of the manufacturer, and some feathered things that looked like roadkill. Despite this, I did manage to spend £25 on some beautiful Gisela Graham ornaments which I didn’t really need.

So, back home now the heating is on and I need to think about getting the tree down from the loft, we can’t have a real tree because they make my husband and son sneeze, and decorating it with my new purchases.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Header photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash