The maxim that timing is everything has never been truer than when eating out with babies and small children. Get the timing wrong and even the most child-friendly eatery will fail to ensure you have a good experience

The morning after our wedding, we met for lunch at Bella Vista with some of our closest friends who had travelled from far and wide to be with us. That was nearly seven years ago and I still remember the warm and rosy glow of that lunch every time I go past. Since then it has been redecorated and the menu updated but it still retains the atmosphere of a very good local trattoria. We almost always turn up on the off chance without a booking and (usually) strike lucky.

When I was on maternity leave there were days I felt like everyone else was busy at work and I was the only person – in the world – sitting at home longing for an adult conversation. On days like those, the only way to keep my sanity, was to get out and about.

At the very least, walking down to Blackheath Village for lunch would be enough to lift my spirits a little. We have the obligatory high street eateries like Pizza Express, Cafe Rouge and Strada but I give them a wide berth. Bursting at the seams with mums, babies and children and a decibel level which would not be out of place on the flightpath of a jumbo jet, they instill in me a mortal fear that I have morphed into ‘the middle-aged mum’