DAY OUT: London

A very busy day in London today, which started at the Royal Exchange and more specifically at Watchfinder & Co. A decent selection of TAGs to look at (and some cool Hublots and Audemars Piguets as well) left me trying on a 9 year old SLR (£1750) while Rose tried on a (small) mans 4000 Series with a slightly odd cream face. After that we had a look in the Omega boutique where I spied a nice looking GMT with incredibly white hands that I daren't ask the price of because I knew I wouldn't be able to afford it.

After that we had a look in Lulu Guinness, the guy in there was quite pleased to see us as we were his first visitors of the day. Rose spied a bag she rather liked and the guy told us we should buy 'Women and Home' magazine on the 29th of September as it would have a 20% voucher in it for LG (for everything except stationery - yeah like... bothered?).

We mooched about a bit trying to kill time before going in to the Pitcher and Piano for lunch, and found a window full of pre-owned watches to gawp at for a few minutes. Mostly Rolexes, but also some Panerais and Royal Oaks, and then we headed in to the P&P.

We both had the Cheeseburger (sans tomato and gherkin) and Rose also made the wise decision to ask for the burger without the mayo, wise because that mayo was disgusting and tasted to me like salad cream. But the burger was nice and the fries were good too. We then changed our plans...

Originally the plan was to go to the Royal Exchange, then Canary Wharf, then North Greenwich, then the Tate Modern, then Green Park and then Covent Garden. But instead we decided to go straight from the City to the Tate Modern where we spent a good couple of hours perusing the free exhibits including a couple of Dalis, and also the 'lobster telephone' alongside Bridget Riley's 'To a Summers Day 2' (which looked a lot better on the wall than this suggests - it was pretty large!).

But our favourite exhibit of the day had to go to the fantastic and utterly mental 'Babel 2001' which was created by Cildo Meireles and is built from 800 radios all turned on and tuned to a different channel.

From the Tate we caught the boat from just outside to the North Greenwich Pier, this stopped at several places along the way including the Tower of London and indeed Canary Wharf (more on that later!)

The reason for the visit to North Greenwich was to try out the 'Emirates Air Line' cable cars which take you from just near the O2, over the river to the North Greenwich Docks. It was pretty good, quite high up and gave good views of the docks, though I can't help thinking the views the other way would probably have been better given that then you would have been looking over the city...

Still, it was good anyway. From here we caught the DLR, but quickly got off again when the opportunity to take the proper underground arose (and also because we hadn't realised that there's more than one DLR line and the route from North Greenwich to Canary Wharf is not direct!).

It took an age, but we eventually managed to locate the Watchfinder store in this huge shopping centre and found it very small and less than thrilling. They did have the Cartier Diver in there, which doesn't look as good in the flesh as I'd hoped... and they did have a couple of Grand Carreras and some very nice Royal Oaks, but overall it just wasn't worth the hassle of finding it. There was also a Charbonel and Walker, but we didn't go in.... :(

From Canary Wharf we took the Jubilee Line to Green Park and from there we walked up Piccadilly to the newly refurbished 'Richoux'. Thankfully the renovations have been carried out sympathetically and rather than being 'modernised' it looks largely the same as before but better (and with new toilets as well). Sadly the menu has changed and the garlic bread has disappeared... still, the cakes are lovely. I had Carrot (as usual...) and Rose had Strawberry Cheesecake and after a 45m rest we felt slightly refreshed and able to walk up the road to Regent Street.

Kate Spade provided us with some distraction, although the staff seemed a bit pushier than usual, with one telling us we could have 20% off the prices if we were looking to buy. There wasn't anything particularly outstanding this time - though of course there were plenty of nice things and we pushed on, back down Regent Street, back to the tube and off to Covent Garden.

Arriving at the Covent Garden tube, we decided to forego the queue for the lift and hike up the 193 stairs (for use in emergency only!), that was a thoroughly awful experience and we compounded our error by heading off in the wrong direction and wasting a few minutes before realising.

In the end we only looked in Oakley, which was a bit of a dead-loss because everything we wanted to look at was last season and so not in the store. They tried to fob us off with some shitty looking shiny hoodies, but we weren't having any of that and bid them good day.

By this time we were thoroughly knackered and we walked back to Leicester Square tube and back up the Northern Line to Euston, where I stopped in at WHSmiths and picked up the new QP. Result!