Serendipity...

Some months ago I was in Christchurch and, as it was An Occasion, a dinner out was appropriate. But where to go? All the usual haunts have been reduced to rubble.

Due to the fact that I am such an organised type, two days before I wanted to go out for dinner, I leapt on the phone and rang round the four remaining restaurants in town seeing if I could get in anywhere.

No, no, no and you’ve got to be kidding. At the place I really wanted to go to, I left a grovelling message leaving my name and number on the answer phone… and started contemplating dinner in Ashburton.

You can imagine how happily gobsmacked I was when they rang me back the following day and told me that, yes, they had one table left and they could squeeze us in at 8.30.

I was stunned at my luck.

So off we went and, ten minutes after we arrived at the restaurant, the chef/owner came over to our table. While the personal touch was very nice, didn't he have more important things to do? Like cook for the rest of the packed-to-the-gunnels restaurant?

And then it all fell into place.

Doing his best to (*cough*mask his disappointment) explain his presence he said, ‘Oh! I was just coming to make sure you’re not the other Kate Mylastname.’

‘Sorry, I’m another one. We’re common as mud. We’re everywhere'.

He then proceeded to try and convince us to purchase an extraordinarily expensive bottle of wine, before making a hasty retreat to his kitchen.

Sometimes, just sometimes, sharing the same name as the local restaurant critic does have its benefits.