There's a chapel at the end of my road that, in the spiritlessness of the times has, predictably, been converted into a luxury home of the sort not usually found in our 'hood complete with, it is rumoured, an infinity pool in the basement fashioned from what was once a full immersion font. Nobody knows much more about it except that the architect's wife refused to move here to 'the middle of nowhere' and so it was sold, for a ludicrous sum, to someone who immediately frosted all the windows, put up blinds and built a tall fence ringed with pampas grass. God forbid the local suburbanites and hoodies should be able to see them sunbathing on their decking, or sitting on the balcony at the back of the church that, mystifyingly, they managed to get through planning in our conservation area though it doesn't quite seem to fit in with the vernacular.
David Cameron, round the corner, had problems with his wind turbine and we can't get a skylight window in the front of our dreary terrace, but a red brick, Victorian Baptist chapel with a steel balcony stuck above the altar - terrific, stick it up there.
So, last night we went for our customary late evening walk round the neighbourhood and there, outside the Architectural Monstrosity, was a pretty wicker basket, full of fat round soft foccacia. Oh dear, I thought, they've probably come back from their country cottage somewhere suitably picturesque and forgotten to take the last bag in when they've been emptying the BMW or Mercedes estate.
My inner meddler kicked in and I immediately rang the bell on the servants' entrance on the side entrance where the basket sat on the pavement and a few seconds later an expensive English accent answered.
'Hello, I think you must have forgotten a basket out here on the street,' I said.
'Yes, I know. I put it there,' said Mme Haughty.
'Oh,' I replied, eruditely.
'Do you want it?'
'Me?' (Me Why would I want your leftover loaves?) 'No,' I gasped, outraged, transforming from friendly neighbour to homeless skip groveller in the space of one second.
I scurried off hurriedly lest Mme Haughty spot me from her overhead security camera and mark me down as Needy of North Kensington. 'What was she thinking?' I asked significant other, 'Did she actually think that someone would take her stale bread, or was she just too lazy to put it in a garbage bag?' I mean, I know we're in the midst of a credit crunch but eating stuff left out out on the street?'
We walked on down the street to the Camerons' where, as far as I know, nobody plays Marie Antoinette with the locals by leaving out baskets of bread for those hungry enough to fight off the foxes, stray packs of Staffordshire Terriers and rats to eat from the pavement (though if you have any spare Smythson's diaries going begging Samantha, I'll happily go through your bins).
