A night in Golders Green...

So, I'm on my way to meet an old friend on her whistlestop-tour-of-London, and I've just parked my car in Golders Green (under the bridge).

A guy parked in front of me, in a Rover 75, is slowly reversing... into me. There's an older woman gesticulating wildly on the pavement for him to stop. She bangs the boot of his car to get him to stop, looks at me, eyebrows raised, and shouts, "don't hit her car." I get worried, get out, he's about 5mm away, but there's no damage.

I say to her something along the lines of "no harm no foul", to which she replies, "my son, he's a terrible driver." "It's OK," I say. "No, he's a terrible driver." Said son gets out of the car - frum in a BT way - and she shouts "apologise to the lady, you nearly hit her car." He looked... well, how one would in such circumstances.

He's about forty. I say to her, "you know, a time comes in your life when you can't really tell your children what to do." She says, "but he should apologise, he nearly drove into you." I say "are you a Jewish mother?" She says, "my son, he just made a film, with Honor Blackman" (who google tells me is 86 and still here, which was news to me). I kid you not.

Son looks at me, I can't read his face. Embarassed? Proud? Nervous about being out with his mother? I say, "oh" and realise I (a) am late and (b) have my own tsorres and just can't get into someone else's story right now, even if it does involved a once-fabulous now-D-list celebrity.

"Mazaltov," I say, as I walk off. Son is looking at parking restriction signage (it's 8.45pm, even in Golders Green that's legal and free), "can you park here?" he asks. "I - ". I'm about to get drawn into another conversational vortex.

"Dunno," I say as I walk off into the night, imagining Honor Blackman in a movie with Carlebachy-type frummers, shouty Jewish mothers and double-parking in Golders Green.

The night is middle-aged. The conversationally-challenged are out and about. Novellino's is milchig but overpriced, and the service is.. chilled, to say the least.