Just round the corner was the site of one of the July London bombs.  Watching places you know well on the news is always dislocating, it's frightening to see shop signage I recognised, and fear for the people I knew there. Thankfully all were ok, if a little shaken and upset that the religious tension of the area had only been increased.

One manicure later, a drizzly stroll through the market waggling wet nail varnish. Place of multiple ethnicities, jostling not entirely comfortably. The market full of women in burkas and brass face masks, Asian men in turbans selling textiles and sparkling jewellery, and stalls of Caribbean vegetables.

Farting about outside the station meant we missed the train after ours, leaving us stranded in the cold as the station is overground. Learning curve: from here on in, decided to try to get the external pixs first, after passing through the ticket gates as quickly as possible, and do the platform shots while waiting for the next train out... Gosh we're actually getting organised! Next stop, Latimer Road, where they don't fill up the chocolate machine often enough:

From there to Ladbroke Grove, nearest stop to Portabello Road market. As we were on a guerilla mission it was a quick in/out to the ticket hall and back, despite the magpie in my soul wanting to go poking through the secondhand clothes, grooviness and junk of the market. Living in London I'd always been a South Londoner which meant getting out to Portabello was a fair trek and hence a special treat...Watch it pass by underneath me from the elevated train tracks, longingly, stalls lit by strung fairy lights enticing in the afternoon gloaming, source of treasure and tat. First came here aged 16 on a weekend visit to Richard who worked in a music shop on Tin Pan Alley, which felt desperately hip and cool to me then. I bought my first paisley shirt from a hippy shop that smelt of incense, because it looked like one Robert Smith wore in Smash Hits.

From Ladbroke Grove, a quick trip to get to Westbourne Park:

I temped here in a Xerox copy shop for a summer in my first year at Uni. There's a high Arabic population locally, and just along from us was a very posh Arabic Art gallery. Staff from the gallery would often call in to get bits and bobs copied and they would not be served by a woman, instead they would stand at the counter acting as if I were invisible until one of the guys was free. It wasn't simply the ignoring in and of itself that drove me crazy, but the certainty of their belief in the rightness of their actions in treating me as a non-person. Bollocks to political correctness, I deny it's 'racist' to say that such cultural attitudes deserve to be crushed out. Between that and fending off the wandering hands of the other member of staff, who would often try to put his hand up my skirt and sneak fingers up under my knicker leg, it was a summer of dealing with various types of devaluation of women that I would not care to repeat.

I'm trying to decide which attitude was worse - a total denial of my physical existence, or an invasion of my personal space in a distinctly personal manner.

The boss there was an ok guy, and did his best to control the testoterone-fuelled antics, but never went so far as to firing the bugger. I do remember there was a Patisserie Valerie just along the Queensway that I used to escape to for some peace and cake at lunchtimes.

This project really stirring up old and buried London memories going to places I haven't ventured to in years and years. I think of all the immigrant London stories, all the layers and layers of it piled up over hundreds of years, back to the maudlin, self-indulgent thoughts of the St Paul's visit.

By now it was getting to late afternoon, and the sky was beginning to bruise. Next stop Royal Oak.

From the name, one would expect that there would be actual trees here, but instead an absolute industrial wasteland of track and housing leading off to Paddington. The sky positively scribbled across by gantries and wiring.

All very linear. Partly it's the contrast between the pastoral vision inspired by the name, all greenwood and leafy retreat and the reality of a blasted expanse of steel girders, boxy mass housing and overhead cabling, like stitching on the calico sky, that makes the place seem so disjointed.

As we waited for the train out, a high speed train bound for Cornwall roared past.

Heading back, what had taken an hour and fifteen minutes from Shepherd's Bush, took a little over twelve minutes to return to Hammersmith. Moulin Rouge style antique adverts painted onto the brickwork. I now know these are called 'ghost signs'.

From here, wending homeward, we went in search of a posher area where there might be a decent off-licence to source a birthday bottle of sherry for Granny, so took the District Line to Turnham Green; by now dark and wintery. Outside the station the most beautiful flower stall and ahead of me another, older woman with candy floss coloured hair. The chap on the flower stall seemed to know her and made comment on the pretty pink.

Walked off in the direction most likely to bring us to booze, and indeed we soon found an Oddbins, past a rich seam of charity shops...counted at least five, so a return visit in the future to hunt down goodies is needed - especially tempting was the Cancer Research on the Chiswich High Road which was filled with WWII forage caps and patterned, velvet dressing gowns. No time to browse as footsore and hungry. Pressed on reluctantly to Chiswick Park, a glorious thirties European-style building, light glowing warmly out of the dark through high rounded windows. The little exclamation mark of black in front the railing is me..

Just our luck: it seems there's renovation going on at Chiswick Park, so the platform we needed was closed. All wrapped up, like Christo was the station manager.



So confused by this turn of events, by accident we then get on the wrong train, and find ourselves heading to Richmond so laughing, hop out at Gunnersbury!

By now, as amusing as this is, we are both very weary, but decide to 'collect' Gunnersbury as we are already here. This porves fortunate, as outside, I realise I have been here before, on a works training day as this is the nearest tube stop to my old cinema company's HQ on Power Road. Accidentally, previously unconnected great tectonic plates of geographical knowledge collide with a pleasing crash. This means we are within striking distance of the bus stop which will be an easier journey home that more tube shenigans...so kicking up leaves and crossing some busy major roads we head down to catch a 65 bus home.

So, Hammersmith x2, Goldhawk Road, Shepherd's Bush, Latimer Road, Ladbroke Grove, Westbourne Park, Royal Oak, Turnham Green, Chiswick Park, and Gunnersbury...there and back again...a day spent merrily going nowhere and home again.