We leave Taunton and head for London. But not straight there – we stop off at Bicester Village, another outlet complex with lots of shops. We meet Clare, Dan and their dog Lincoln for a late breakfast at what is probably the biggest Pret à Manger we’ve ever seen. Dan is visiting his brother, who lives nearby, whilst we go shopping with Clare. She soon finds a raincoat that she absolutely loves and which suits her very well. She buys it.

And that’s actually all the three of us are buying. Well, apart from lunch from Itzu and, later on, a sticky toffee pudding from Fortnum & Mason’s. Ever since we tried this dessert at Clare and Dan’s, we just can’t get enough of it. Dan has returned from his brother in time for the sticky toffee pudding.

It’s time to say goodbye to them for good. Hopefully we’ll see them again soon. After a stop to fill up, we reach the outskirts of London and are surprised. LucY is guiding us towards an exit much sooner than expected. We only find out the reason for this much later: the motorway ahead of us is closed and traffic has come to a complete standstill. Here, one exit earlier, at least it’s only really bad.

At last we arrive at our hotel and realise: nobody here has given a single thought to anything so far. To get into the car park, we have to park outside every time, collect the only garage door opener from reception – leaving an ID card as a deposit in the process – then park, then return the device, and only then can we go to our room. Even getting back to the car park is a hassle: in fact, the only way is via a flight of stairs. We can take the lift down to the correct basement level and walk through the storage room with the laundry and other bits and bobs, but our room key doesn’t open the door to the corridor leading to the car park. So we have to stop off at reception every time and wait for someone to come with us. And we never know whether we’ll actually be able to get to the car: if someone’s parked in the space right outside the door, we can’t. It’s incredibly tedious and spoils our stay.

As the battery is almost flat, we drive to the Westfield Shopping Centre to charge it. After we’ve finally found the right car park and the right floor, both lifts going up are out of order. I manage to get upstairs via the emergency staircase anyway and pick up a late-night snack from Wingstop, which we take back to the hotel.