Having been to TOADS to have my hair done, I set off in the drizzle to London Town. The hair stayed in tact. I have to admit to having a stiff neck from trying to keep my head as still as possible.
Annie, one of my oldest friends, sacrificed her gardening to babysit Jackson and Emmy, so I left Sussex with a guilty, though happy heart.
Got to the flat by 2.30, Jim turned up shortly after me. He’d been rehearsing all morning.
The ‘Nearasdamnitson’ turned up an hour later.
In the hour before he arrived Jim and I nipped into Sloane Square to buy him a ‘Tiffany’ bean.
You all know Tiffany’s.
You all know what a bean looks like. Well imagine a bean cast in silver and wrapped in the tourquoise blue packaging that Tiffany’s are renowned for, and there you have it.
We had a little ceremony in the kitchen where we gave the boy his bean and wished him well for the opening.
He then went off with Edge, his long term partner in crime, and Jim and I followed on later.
THE FRESH BEAN cafe is on Streatham High Road. It’s next to The Money Shop and opposite the Cop shop, so if you are a robber looking for a freebee forget it.
At 7.00 people started to trickle in, by 7.45 they were flowing through the door, by 8.15 there was a positive tidal wave of friends, family and one or two bemused passers by.
The B daughter came over from Camberwell, and the Hanna daughter trained it from Brighton. Folk drove up from Wiltshire and down from Manchester. Actors, film makers, musicians and designers mingled over the mulled wine, laughed over the latte and caroused over the canapes – which may I say were lipsmackingly evil. Prawn tempura on sticks, pefectly turned spring rolls, Chinese chicken wings, delectable duck in pastry and doughy delicious onion rings. Mmmm!.
I was placed up on a chair, the better for the assembled throng to see and hear me. Standing on a soft cushion was not easy in my 6 inch stilletto-heeled, leopard-skin boots, but a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do and when it calls for a girl to balance on a chair in Streatham High Road then needs must.
The speech went down well and the leopard skin boots knocked spots off the other footwear on show. The Boy did his thank-yous, we all clapped, raised out glasses and the FRESH BEAN was officially open.
I am giving it a shameless plug because, well, he IS my Nearasdamnitson and if he makes a go of it then we may all just get our money back!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s now time to curl up on the settee and finish my book. A children’s novel that I bought for 50p back home from one of Johnathan’s boot sale boxes. But I really do need to curl up as my balls are throbbing from them there leopard skin boots.
I’m doing ‘Food That Changed’ your life tomorrow, so a big thank you for all your wonderful emails, I shall read out as many as I can.
Have a good night and hear you tomorrow.
Good. That’s it then
cul8tr alig8tr