Extreme dining

Yesterday I had lunch in an igloo. That’s not a sentence I ever thought I’d write. I dislike extreme cold intensely, probably because I grew up in Ottawa, Canada’s frozen capital. I wish they’d had an alternative, tropical capital I could have moved to, but they didn’t seem to have one on offer. Ottawa winters are long and bitingly cold. I never dream of travelling to cold climates, no matter how beautiful the northern lights might be or how beguiling the penguins. I feel that I have already experienced several lifetimes’ worth of snow and ice and now it’s time for me to stand back and let others have a turn.

So what was I doing in an igloo? It was in fact a glass igloo set in the grounds of a restaurant whose gardens slope picturesquely down to the Thames. We ate our lunch in the igloo because we thought it would be fun (it was), because we were worried it might rain (it did) and because in these Covid-19 times we thought we’d be happier in our own bubble (we were).

Which made me think about the time I ate lunch in a tree. Well, it was the Treehouse Restaurant at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, but the branches twining inside and out, the rickety wooden structure and the eccentric crooked design made it feel much more like an ancient, gnarled tree than a 21^st century restaurant. The whole experience transported me back to Enid Blyton’s ‘Faraway Tree’ books, which I loved as a child. And who doesn’t want to live in an Enid Blyton book, free of adult constraints?

Then there was the time I had lunch in the cat café in Old Chelsea, Québec. Although I have to be honest, this was long on novelty and short on excitement. There were lots of stand-offish cats milling about overhead in their many walkways and hideaways, looking down on us with – well, I can only describe it as contempt. We were not allowed to approach them and they certainly had no intention of approaching us. And I kept checking my sandwich for stray cat hairs. I see that it’s closed now.

One of the best and strangest meals I’ve ever had, though, was in The Clink Restaurant in Her Majesty’s Prison, Cardiff. The exquisite food was prepared and served by prisoners who were all working towards hospitality and catering qualifications. It is a wonderful scheme run by the Clink Charity, which helps prisoners to find employment in the hospitality business upon their release. We were vetted beforehand and put through a security check before being taken inside. I really couldn’t fault the food or service, but, sadly, no alcoholic drinks were served. We did consider trying to smuggle a bottle in, but then thought better of it.

I could go on – I’ve had both lunch and afternoon tea in a double-decker bus – but right now I’d give anything just to be sitting in an Italian piazza, sipping prosecco and eating bruschetta while serenely, and gratefully, enjoying the cacophony of life swirling all around me.