Nora, companion in Paddington

About Nora

Nora is up before the city bothers, which is why she is so unhurried by evening. She is athletic and 166 cm, her hair long and honey blonde, her hazel eyes catching the light in a low-lit room. She dresses with an easy precision: a dress in a strong plain colour, a coat with a collar she turns up, almost nothing in the way of jewellery. In her mid twenties, she has an open face and a direct manner, and she will tell you what she thinks rather than what she assumes you would like.

In English she is clear and cheerful, with a habit of asking exactly the question you were hoping to be asked. She trains properly, swims in the Serpentine when the weather is on her side, and has views about breakfast that she will defend at length. Her humour is deadpan enough that guests occasionally miss it the first time. What she is really good at is making an ordinary Tuesday feel like an occasion without putting on any kind of show.

Paddington is where she lives and where she likes to stay. The Victoria on Strathearn Place is the room she picks: a proper old pub with a dining room upstairs, gilt mirrors, ten minutes on foot from the W2 hotels and about as far from a hotel bar in spirit as you can get. Before dinner, if there is light left, she will take you into the park at Lancaster Gate. Afterwards, the quiet squares behind Sussex Gardens on the way back to your door.

The station walk and the W2 hotels are covered on the Paddington page. Put your evening, or your morning, to booking and the reply names both the hour and the place.

Booking her

Nora takes early evenings and, unusually, early mornings: a breakfast booking is a genuine option with her. Send the desk the date and the hour and Cordelia confirms by message with the meeting point in it.

Her figures are the same figures every companion here works to, printed on the rates page, and the order a booking runs in is on the booking page.

An evening with Nora

Six o'clock suits her better than nine. There is usually still light in the park, so she walks you in at the Lancaster Gate corner and round the water while the runners are finishing and the deckchairs are being stacked. It costs half an hour and completely changes the evening that follows.

Dinner upstairs in a room with gilt mirrors and no music, where the menu is short and the staff know her. She eats well and talks straight, and by the second course you will have told her something you had not planned to. Afterwards the squares behind Sussex Gardens, empty and lamplit, and your hotel door at whatever hour the booking runs to. She never once looks at her phone, and she will quietly notice if you do.