North of Pizza Hut

I have just had to send a parcel to Costa Rica. The address was very strange. ‘Norte de Pizza Hut’. Spanish is not a language I have learnt, but I suspected that meant ‘north of Pizza Hut’. What a ridiculous address! However, just as I was preparing to mock this to various colleagues, I stopped.

I had a vivid recollection of me, having just moved to the big, bad city, missing the exit for sunny Stratford on the A12 for about the tenth time. Boyfriend was rapidly losing patience with my general driving incompetence. Holding back the tears, I shouted, “there are no landmarks! The whole bloody place looks the same…!’ To which, Boyfriend calmly pointed out a massive McDonald's, stating that that was a perfectly good landmark. I curled my lip.

The next time I was tootling along the A12 in my Renault Clio with a disconcerting creak, I spotted the golden arches and got off the A12 without batting an eyelid. Boyfriend sensibly kept quiet.

So who am I to ridicule an address ‘north of Pizza Hut’? As I am never going to be able to afford to live ‘just north of Buckingham Palace’, perhaps I just have to settle for ‘right at the massive McDonalds in Bow’ as my landmark…but at least it is not part of my address…!