Saturday bits and bobs

Saturday 5th April

A day where the things that went wrong turned out to be blessings in disguise. As I've been scrimping on the exercise recently, I hauled myself to the gym, which is in Bloomsbury, right next to Coram's Fields, which I love and remember fondly from the days my children used to go to ballet there on Saturdays. Coram's is a fantastic place to sit and read, but you have to be with a child to be allowed in!

When I emerged from the gym I discovered my stupid bike lock had got stuck, as happens sometimes because it's stored outside – water gets in and the mechanism jams – and so I headed to the nearest bike shop for oil. I was pretty grumpy about it, but if my bike lock hadn't broken I wouldn't have discovered the miraculous Doughty Mews, tucked away behind Doughty Street (where Charles Dickens lived).

It's an absolutely beautiful little paved street, closed to cars and lined with houses which all seem to be inhabited by architects (mews houses are like catnip to architects – round the corner …