My return to London, in numbers

You know, like those annoying, those lazy newspaper articles. I see now why they do it. It's an easy way to summarise some loosely linked thoughts in a, well, yes, lazy way.

So here it is:

• 6 nights at Number 25, the Gambler's flat. A very stylish, comfortable bachelor pad, with a great big telly and some lovely mid-century furniture.
• Three solid hours with each of my London goddaughters. If I had a competition for which of them was the brightest, sweetest and funniest, they would tie.
• 3 favourite bus routes. 134, C2, 46, getting me from NW5 to wherever I need to be. I love London buses. Disproportionately so.
• 30 hours, at least, of BBC News 24 ...and about the same of of Radio 4. I'm now fully up to speed with the Archers, the cricket, and all that boring-yet-fascinating background information you don't know you're picking up but will quote in a conversation sometime very soon.
  
• 8 to 10 cups of tea, and 2 glasses of wine, with each of my Handmaidens-of-Honour (the HoHs). Deep, deep joy at the long, langourous chats that can happen when they aren't being squinched between two Transatlantic flights, or conducted via Skype.
• £1.50 for a perfect Americano from the Wine Cellar, Kentish Town's long-standing Portugese deli. And I didn't crack and throw in a pastel de nata, those delicious little custard tarts they sell.

By my standards, that's a pretty good week in Kentish Town. And only about 2000 'I miss you' texts sent to TLOML.

And now... I'm off for 10 days in Rio.

Annoyingly I am leaving Rio the day the carnival - that massive, world famous, street party - starts. (It's the price of a visa to stay another night - I just can't do it). So I imagine the number of passenger on my flight home will not be much higher than 1.