With what fondness do I look back to August, the best month by a distance for your city dweller. The streets, or more accurately, the roads have emptied and unless you choose to spend the day outside Buckingham Palce or Madame Tussards (Spot the Freudian connection) you need never see a tourist or almost anyone else.
Added to which delights my son and heirs decamped to Nice and Barcelona respectively so I no longer had to decant the gin into fabric softener bottles and the fridge stayed fully stocked for days on end.
And then there was the Olympics. Now I am not normally a fan of sporting activities and certainly not if it involves wearing Lycra but a friend came over one night and whilst working our way through a bottle of Mothers Ruin (Incidentslly in a record beating time) we actually got quite excited about the cycling. By the time we ran out of tonic there was even wild talk of getting the four ladies from the pub quiz team to train for Tokyo.
Obviously this plan was ditched next morning faster than the bottle into the neighbour’s recycling bin and in a spirit of embracing reality I decided the time had come to sell my own bicycle – one lady owner,never raced or rallied, the bike anyway, and if I am brutally honest, only ridden twice.
Unfortunately the buyer lived somewhere called Southend and thinking logically that London boasts a West and an East End, and I imagined it must therefore be one of those places south of the river that one has never visited. Obviously. So very wrong. It turns out to be – dramatic pause – in Essex.
I decided that nothing else would do but to hire a white van,the better to blend in with the natives. I also took Useless the Younger with me as he has a tattoo on his arm which he dangled out of the window to lend us a little street cred. Fashion followers will note that I was sporting site specific white sling back stilettos and a spray tan. Add to the mix a pair of furry dice and a folded copy of the Daily Express on the dashboard and we were ready for anything.
Regular reader(s) will know that I have driven a great many cars over the last 30 years but a White Van turns out to be The Best Thing Ever. Traffic just parts before you like the Red Sea. So when Mr Bolt was looking for inspiration in preparation for his attempt for three more gold medals he merely looked East and feasted his eyes on the vision of Lady K in her white chariot outrunning the field by miles.
I note that since my piece on Canvey a Island the residents of Stamford Hill have decided to decamp there en masse. Perhaps I can work the same magic on Sarfend. Perhaps Usain will retire there.

What, you may have asked yourself, possibly on more than one occasion, does Lady Kingston have in common with Derek Jarman?
Very little, you might imagine, what with him being male, gay, talented and dead. But there is something. We both have a deep love of Dungerness, it being, by a distance of several million miles, my favourite place in the world and the home of my ancestors for over a thousand years.
If you know anything at all about the place it is probably a vague memory of it being the home of two enormous nuclear power stations which loom menacingly over the world’s biggest shingle beach. Not to everyone’s taste, I grant you, but on the up side the fish do glow very prettily in the dark.
And it was in the spirit of Brexit and embracing the more unusual parts of our island that I decided to visit Canvey Island which bears the attractively painted claim to be the Lourdes of England.
I had imagined it would resemble the ‘valley of ashes’ town in Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’, overlooked by the baleful eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg and the perfect English Bank Holiday destination.
The day dawned disappointingly dry. I wanted lashing rain, sodden, flapping deck chairs, grizzling toddlers, bewildered pensioners sheltering in bus stops and wild gusts of wind snatching copies of the Daily Express out of frozen hands. In short, the full British holiday experience.
Canvey Island turned out to be ever so slightly lacking – no surprise there then.
No Dr. Eckleberg sign, or even a sign of Dr. Feelgood, the most famous local citizen. It was not really that industrial, more drearily suburban and deserted, the inhabitants probably sunning themselves in their Tuscan palazzos or shooting grouse on a Scottish moor.
I made the most of the limited opportunities, getting fish and chips and a parking ticket and posed beneath the painted sign overlooking the fetid, oily water and thinking of England.
I like a slogan. I once had my picture taken in Bilbao by a man who had been spray painting a sign demanding Basque independence. I held the can and looked revolutionary which earned me several brownie points from No. 1 Son who is a committed supporter of oppressed minorities. (Except mothers). He claims to have been arrested by the Spanish police once when promoting the Basque cause but given I had no phone calls from them begging me to take him back, I am a little sceptical.
Next week I reveal how my trip to Southend inspired Usain Bolt and my progress through the country will take me to Skegness. Does it get any better?