Why most evenings up here start at a front door
Muswell Hill has no hotel and no tube station, and it is, almost street for street, a suburb of Edwardian houses built within a few years either side of 1900 for families who wanted a view and a garden. A century later a great many of those houses have been divided into flats: an upper flat and a lower one, sometimes three or four, each with its own letter and its own bell. The same is true across the northern postcodes, from the Victorian terraces of Highgate and Kentish Town to the long streets either side of Finsbury Park.
So when someone up here books an evening for the first time, it is nearly always at home, and nearly always in a flat that shares a front door. That is entirely ordinary and it causes nobody any trouble, provided a few small things are thought about beforehand. Most first bookings that start awkwardly start awkwardly on the doorstep, not inside, and almost every doorstep problem is solved by one clear message.
The door you share, and the one nobody can find
Converted houses on these streets come in a few familiar patterns. Some keep the original front door, with a communal hall behind it and a row of bells beside it labelled in several people's handwriting, one of them long out of date. Some have two doors side by side in the same porch, one for upstairs and one for down, which look identical in the dark. And the garden flat, the one on the lower ground floor, very often has an entrance of its own, down a flight of steps at the side of the house or under the main front steps, where no visitor would ever think to look.
The garden flat is the one that causes the trouble. A companion arriving at a house number will go to the main door, ring the only bell that looks like yours, and wake the person on the second floor. The fix is simple: say in so many words where your door is. Down the steps to the left of the porch. The black door, not the green one. Round the side past the bins. A sentence like that is worth more than any map.
What to send, and when
Your first message to the desk needs only the evening, the hour and the district. The address comes once the booking is confirmed, and when it does, send all of it at once: the street and house number, the flat letter or floor, which door, and whether the bell works. If the bell is unreliable, and in old houses they often are, say that you will come down and open the door at the agreed time, and then do so.
It helps to add one landmark if the street is hard to find, because the roads off the Broadway curve with the hill and several of them change their name partway along. Say whether a car can stop outside or whether she should get out at the end of the road, and mention anything a stranger would trip over, such as a gate that sticks or a path with no light on it. Give the name you would like her to use at the door. Four or five lines covers all of it; the booking page shows at which point in the exchange the address is asked for.
Neighbours on the stairs
This is the worry that stops people booking at home at all, and it is much smaller than it seems. She arrives dressed like someone who lives a couple of streets away and has come round for the evening, because on these streets nobody could tell the difference. There is nothing about her arrival that a neighbour would notice twice.
If you meet someone on the stairs, say hello as you would with any visitor, and carry on. You do not owe anybody an introduction or an explanation, and the least conspicuous thing in the world is two people chatting their way up a staircase. What does draw attention is a visitor left standing on the step ringing the wrong bell, or a whispered conversation in the hall, so open the door promptly, say her name at an ordinary volume and let the hall light come on. Communal lights in these houses are often on timers; press the switch as you pass rather than walking up in the dark.
The first ten minutes inside
A little preparation makes the start easy. The room you will sit in should be warm and tidy, with lamps on rather than the big overhead light, and a glass of water or something better within reach. Turn the television off before she arrives rather than while she is taking her coat off. Put your phone somewhere out of sight.
Her fee is handed to her in person as she comes in, before the time starts, and after that nobody mentions it again. Then let the evening be what it is. For a first booking at home, ninety minutes at £400 is the length most people find comfortable, long enough for the first nerves to go and for a conversation to find its own pace; two hours at £500 leaves room for a walk to the Broadway and back. This is the shape described under the unhurried evening, and it suits a sitting room at least as well as it suits a restaurant.
Leaving as quietly as she came
When the time is up, walk her down to the front door, or to the gate if the path is dark, and leave the hall light on until she has reached the pavement. If she has a car waiting at the end of the road, she will already know where it is. If she is taking the bus down the hill to Finsbury Park or Highgate, she will have checked the times before she arrived, because anybody who works up here plans the way home before the evening starts rather than after it ends.
If you would rather not receive anyone at home at all, the guide to staying near Highgate and Muswell Hill sets out the nearest rooms and the honest car times from each.
Companions near the Broadway
Lea is anchored in Muswell Hill, quick and warm, and entirely used to finding a garden flat door on a dark street. Patricia is ten minutes away by car along the ridge from Highgate, thoughtful and unhurried, which is exactly the temperament a first evening at home calls for. Rosa rides the W7 up from Finsbury Park, curly haired and expressive, and arrives with an opinion about where you should have dinner next time.
Patricia and Rosa are both on the late twenties page, the largest group on the list, and anyone there will come up the hill on the same terms. Tell Verity on the evening desk the street and what sort of evening you are hoping for, and she will reply with a short list and a line on why each name would suit.
Cross filed: most of the names on this sheet also sit in the auburn and red drawer of the moodboard.