Overground, underground.

Twenty-five pages of fruitless Time Out suggestions later and Charlotte and I spent most of the day sitting on the grass, walking round the shops, bumping into elephants and looking for banks/toilets/the British Museum. Apparently my geographical knowledge of central London is much like a dodgy sat-nav: very good at locating the major thoroughfares, grey and foggy round the edges and useless when it comes to the particulars. If I stray from the beaten track I am want to tell myself, "where possible make a u-turn", but unfortunately I rarely listen to my own sage advice (hence lots of marching through unchartered territory hoping to bump into a familiar landmark eventually :)).

Because Charlotte arrived after two and because the sun shone late into the day we existed on a weird extended time-scale. We ate popcorn chicken at Marble Arch, bought camera film on Carnaby Street, popped into Hope and Greenwood for 'I'm a good girl' badges and the Primrose Bakery for miniature cupcakes, then after a long walk North and a bus ride back to London Bridge we went to Shoreditch and shuffled into the Cargo beer garden. With spare change in hand we bundled into the Photoautomat and proceeded to plan our props and poses. This involved at least ten minutes of umming and ahhing and runaway pom-poms and finally, a couple of strips of photographs. We took the new (seats circa. nineteen-seventy) overground line back to Surrey Quays - and not 'Haggerston' as the tannoy lady informed us - where there was time for Frankie and Benny's and secret scanning before a late-night bus trip to Oxford. Womble womble.