London

When Nikki said she'd found a train ticket deal for a day trip to London, I wasn't sure how I felt about it. There was no doubt it was an excellent deal - £16 return for the day compared to the £236 I usually pay to travel down on business - but those last few words held the key to my dilemma. I go down there so often with work (and hate it every time) - how would I feel as a day tripper? Wasn't it going to be a bit of a busman's holiday, even though we were going by train?

I needn't have worried. I didn't have to rush, or leave early, or battle the rush-hour tube, or carry a laptop bag everywhere with me, so the entire trip was much more relaxed and didn't have the slightest resemblance to a work day.

We left Piccadilly on the 9.15 and arrived just before 11.30. Not really having any firm plans for the day (a mistake, as it later turned out) we set off to spend a couple of hours in the Science Museum. This proved a bit disappointing. Parts of it were being refurbished and the rest had been thrown out of kilter by having some exhibits housed in alternative positions. I also found many of the displays - designed for today's youth with their microsecond attention spans - quite unsatisfying to browse, although there were some neat items like the first Cray supercomputer and the original DNA model that Watson and Crick put together.

Emerging from the museum around 1pm and unsure where to head next, we walked around the block through a short shower of rain - the only rain we suffered during the whole day - passing the Albert Hall and then setting off for Kensington to find a place to lunch. Walking down Kensington High Street, we passed Paul Weller - our only celebrity encounter of the day.

Eventually we recognised a few landmarks and ended up at the Lord Moon of the Mall - the Wetherspoons pub at which we had intended to meet up with a bunch of friends several years before but which had been closed back then owing to a bomb scare in Whitehall.

A couple of pints and a sandwich later, we were suitably refreshed and set off again in the general direction of Westminster. When I first visited London - a 17th birthday present from my parents - we had ticked off all the major tourist destinations. Back then this included Downing Street, and we were able to walk right up to the front door of No. 10 and stare into the whites of the eyes of the single London bobby who stood on duty protecting the head of Government.

Clearly the head of Government requires a deal more protection these days. Not only is it impossible to get within 50 feet of No. 10 owing to the road being closed off with several tons of ironwork and automatic barriers that rise silently from the road, but the single bobby has been replaced with an entire squad of armed police in Kevlar vests, sporting automatic rifles.

They smile at the passing tourists, but the smile doesn't quite reach their eyes. I walk past similar barriers, even sturdier and with an even larger police presence, every time I visit Westminster. It's a blight on the London landscape. Do other countries feel the need to protect their PM this way, or is it just rampant paranoia? I don't know, but I can't help feeling that it may all look very impressive, but none of it would stop a determined terrorist with an ounce of sense.

We walked over Westminster Bridge, snapping away at the Eye and the bizarre artwork outside the Dali exhibition, and along the other side of the river (Jubilee Walk is it? Or something) where four strange figures dressed all in silver were standing or sitting motionless except for the breeze-induced flutterings of their monochrome costumes. Every now and then one of them might lean forward unexpectedly to bop anyone who threw change into his pot lightly on the head with a long silver staff. This lady merely sat with her demur smile fixed prettily on her face, holding her hat on against the wind. London in all its mad eccentricity. Top stuff.

Walking back over Jubilee Bridge we stopped for a pint in the Sherlock Holmes before wending our way slowly back to Euston. Here's where our lack of planning really bit home. We arrived at Euston three hours before our scheduled departure time. Not really enough time to pack in any other sightseeing and still feel comfortable about making the train (the dealtime tickets were only valid for the 9.05pm departure), or eat in a fancy restaurant where we couldn't guarantee the speed of service. So we holed up in a bar just around the corner from Euston and then, still with a couple of hours to kill, sat down to a plate of Harry Ramsden's fish, chips and mushy peas in the station caff.

The pre-Summer Time light was fading fast as we walked to the main station entrance on the way to that fine repast. Countless times I've passed through Euston and this was my first chance to take photos. Maybe I should invest in a pocket digital of the kind Nikki uses, and carry it everywhere. Maybe I should turn into a photoblogger. Maybe I should stop stressing about this stuff. Anyway, here's Euston. And there we go - back to Manchester, arriving at 11.29 pm. Footsore and sleepy, but having had a strangely fulfilling experience.