Mr Fogg’s Botanical Tavern and Treehouse – Fitzrovia
A London catch up
It was so lovely to meet up with Karen Bird for an evening in London last night. It hardly felt like five minutes since we’d last seen each other—though in truth it was many moons ago.
Emma and I travelled up from South London, by train and tube and met up with Karen at Mr Fogg’s Botanical Tavern, where we spent a long and chatty evening.
Introducing Karen to Emma for the first time was entertaining, mainly because I could hardly get a word in edgeways 😆😆😆. They were chit chatting away like they’d known each other for donkeys’ years…Whose ‘old friend’ was this meant to be again?
The weather was glorious: blue skies and comfortable temperatures. We started off sitting outside before retreating indoors to our table.
Dinner was reasonably priced and perfectly adequate, but the real highlight came at bill-paying time. Only the drinks had been charged. I pointed this out, asked the staff to double-check the bill (three times!), but they insisted the food had already been paid for. Eventually I gave up protesting, settled the tab, and returned to the table grinning. Perhaps we’d been visited by a mysterious random bill payer!
Ho hum, I did try, and harder than most, I suspect!
We carried on upstairs to the not-so-secret cocktail lounge, a “treehouse” themed bar which is delightfully kooky. So, naturally, the money saved on dinner was swiftly reinvested in cocktails. A win-win, I’d say.
Surprise Guests
As luck would have it, we even had fleeting visits from two family members: Hannah, one of Emma’s triplets, and my youngest daughter, Sarah.
Hannah was in London for work, and by coincidence was just seven minutes away in another pub, so she joined us for a quick glass before heading off with friends. Moments later Sarah, also on a nearby work conference, happened to be walking past Mr Fogg’s on her way to an evening event. Cue the shortest of introductions. The beauty of WhatsApp!
Friendship since 1971
Karen and I worked out that our last proper catch-up was back in September 2017, at a ‘Dîner en Blanc’ event in Somerset House, London. This was a rather chic invitation only event that started in Paris 1988 and has since spread to multiple cities globally (see here for background). A lot has happened to me since then: a marriage and a divorce, multiple house moves, retirement, and, most importantly, meeting Emma.
Karen’s life has shifted too. Thanks to Facebook, I’ve followed from afar: her new career, children’s milestones, her husband’s job changes. But it was wonderful to finally fill in all the backstories over a glass or two. The best tales, are of course, kept off social media.
It was around 1971, at Highfield Primary School in Hillingdon where I first met Karen Payne, as she was then. Apparently, although I can’t remember, one of my first interactions with Karen was to stab her with the end of a compass! This caused her mother to have words with mine! I reckon that was fake news… just look at that angelic boy, how could he have done such a thing!
We went on to join Mellow Lane Comprehensive, and even shared the same ‘A’ level classes in sixth form (Sociology, Economics and Geography). Karen was one of only a handful of pupils from my school who actually managed to go to University back then. It was a different world in the ‘80s. Most of us went straight to into jobs either at the age of 16 or 18. I went on to crash out of sixth form half way though – See open apology!
Karen’s always been a keen writer, keeping in touch for a few years after we left school, and with no mobiles or internet, Royal Mail was the only option for our generation! We remained pen pals for a while, although I know she put more effort into letter writing than I ever did – BOYS!
Social media rekindled things properly about 15 years ago, FriendsReunited and later Facebook and WhatsApp.
A few of the old Mellow Laners hooked up at Adam Holman’s 50th Birthday party around 2015, which felt a little like a mini reunion.
And I visited Karen and her husband Andy back In 2011 when they were kind enough to put me up for a couple of nights after I extended a business trip to Dubai.
Looking back at the photos it’s hard to believe that Sasha is now half way through her 4 year degree course, and Lucas is now a first officer airline pilot with Wizz, my favourite airline!
So until next time…
We’ve promised it won’t be such a long gap, next year’s already in the diary!