I was walking down this street at 10:45am this morning...



Clearly it was just me. Everyone else was fifty yards to the right, trying to get in through the back door.

That might look like a delightful Regency style street in the heart of Kemp Town, but sadly Brighton doesn't have a telecoms tower in the trees. Which is why you can't get an O2 signal at the hospital. The street above is actually Cornwall Terrace in London. Or rather, the buildings on the right are. The road is called 'Outer Circle', but when you've paid a few million for a three-storey town house opposite Regents Park, you need a classier sounding address. And besides, you're probably more inner circle than outer.

So the row of houses is named separately. Which is why no one can find Cornwall Terrace on a map, and your friends end up in the mews around the back, trying to get a leg up over the wall.

Officially I was there for this...


... but it's only a few doors down from the most expensive terraced house in the world, so it also gave me a chance to check out where I'll be living when my EuroMillions numbers come up. Assuming they come up three or four times in consecutive weeks.

For me, attending the last council meeting in December was a lot like being Michael Palin without a camera crew, so I was tempted to pack enough supplies for an eighty day trip. But fortunately things went a lot more smoothly this time. I was walking past the Sherlock Holmes Museum in Baker Street less than two hours after leaving home. It was what you might call elementary.

The Royal College of Ophthalmologists is housed in a building which is compact and bijou enough to only be worth about twenty million or so, but they provided us with a good sized room, complete with some antique ophthalmic curiosities in a glass case. There were thirteen of us there, so it was a lot like The Last Supper, but with Bakewell tarts instead of bread, and no one to turn the water into wine.

Lunch consisted of a range of "Freshly Cut Sandwiches", an interesting description which suggested they could have been sitting there for a week, only to be chopped up that morning. Either way, they tasted nice, although I think someone had made a bit of a cock-up with the quiche. I'm no Delia, but I'm not sure a savoury flan should be made with sweet pastry.

It was a very productive day though, and I had a nice conversation over the third floor bannisters with someone on the second floor stairs who likes my writing. She was definitely looking up to me. Although it seemed to be hurting her neck. Ultimately though, the best thing about the day was that I made it out of there on time, hopped straight on a fast train, and made it back to Brighton in time to pick up Amelie from nursery. And I'm telling you now, I might be able to breeze into London and back with stress-free ease, but that walk up the hill with a moaning four-year-old felt like a nightmare of epic proportions.