Dad and I are outside Liberty. The sun is beating down for about the millionth day running and I have persuaded him into another hat – a baseball cap with ‘New York’ on it (not that either of us have ever been there; he bought it online from Next) – while I am stifling in a misjudged charity-shop khaki jumpsuit I thought could one day hold the power to make me look chic and current, but actually makes me look like a long past-it children’s TV presenter.

‘Architects hated Liberty,’ says Dad, as I look up at the famous black-and-white timbered shop in the blazing hot sunshine. I don’t have a cap on and can feel my face burning, despite my thick layer of suncream. ‘They said it was for philistines. It’s the finest example of Tudor Revival Arts and Crafts architecture in London and beyond,’ he continues. ‘Twenty-four thousand cubic metres of teak and solid oak timbers from two British naval ships – HMS Hindustan and HMS Impregnable – make up its frontage, and the store is the same height and length as the Hindustan.’

He sounds like he’s reading from a website via his Braille display. He is grumpy again. The fun of Covent Garden has gone today and been replaced by surliness. I’m not really sure why. Perhaps it was the tube journey. A terrible twat in a tracksuit quipped, ‘Look out, it’s Andre Botticelli and Freddy Krueger’s sister,’ as we were going through the barriers.

‘Andrea Bocelli,’ I corrected him, ‘mate,’ while shooting him a look that would freeze burning lava. ‘And Freddy Krueger doesn’t have a sister.’ I knew my make-up hadn’t worked today; sometimes it just doesn’t seem to stick. Then there was the pigeon that got on the tube at Mornington Crescent, causing great amusement to the other people on the carriage, but Dad got strangely snappy at even the mention of the word ‘pigeon’, wouldn’t join in with the smiles and laughter and went all quiet on me.

Great Marlborough Street is busy and bustling this morning. ‘The owner, Arthur Lasenby Liberty, literally wanted to dock a ship in the city streets,’ adds Dad, sounding as excited as a fish reading the news.

‘Excellent,’ I say. Perhaps it’s my grumpiness that has rubbed off on Dad. My mind is not on Great Marlborough Street, outside Liberty, this morning. It is still on the darkened street outside the Dickensian as a taxi draws up and a man looks at me with tenderness, then kisses me with passion and says goodbye.