You know it’s Monday when you awake with a sense of dread. Why so, I hear you ask? You don’t go to work any longer, they say. No, these days, Monday mornings mean the over-sixties’ keep-fit class. It’s advertised as the over-fifties but, apart from the instructor, we comprise a decrepit bunch of relics whose combined ages probably exceeds a millennium.

It’s therapy: we go to remind ourselves that another week has started. We can’t remember where to go next, let alone the names of any of the other forty or so masochists present. Most of us have forgotten to have breakfast and by Wednesday we’ll have lost track of the days. And if we failed to notice that it’s pouring with rain, a strategically placed bowl has been positioned to catch the leakage in the community hall roof. Those to the right must (pretend to) march and grapevine and box-walk carefully to avoid said obstacle. Yes, it’s another day in paradise.

Obviously, greetings don’t involve the time honoured question ‘how are you?’ We’d be there all week describing various symptoms. Which isn’t to say we don’t make enquiries: ‘feeling any better?’ And, of course, everyone is thrilled to have made it through another week – ‘I really didn’t feel like coming this morning’; ‘it was hard work getting up today’. We queue up to pay our £4 subs and the room is filled with an air of bitterness. To be fair, the instructor remembers all of last week’s excuses: ‘how are your hips?;‘did the antibiotics work?’ how’s your father?’ ‘how’s your mother?’;‘how are your ankles?’ The questions are a bit tricky for those who’ve had to learn how to update ‘the dog ate my homework’ excuse. That was last week. Last week has gone, never to return. You have to possess some semblance of memory to be a good liar.

Eyes on the clock, we complete the warming-up exercises after which the woman next to me says she’s had enough and is going home. We’re allowed to pause for a sip of water and replenish our drips. Who’d have thought a plastic bottle of tap water could be of such importance.

It’s time for the pelvic floor muscle exercise. Having obtained the correct position, which involves holding in a tummy that generally precludes sight of one’s feet and would be better achieved with a winch, there are four parts to this activity most of which, from a distance, are difficult to recall. I think the first involves standing up straight and tightening the ‘abs’. I don’t know what the ‘abs’ are, let alone where they might be located. After this, we must relax. I’m good at this bit because I think it means letting it all back out again. Next, comes stage three. I’ve never really understood stage three so always speed on to the final part which seems to involve standing up straight again. Anyway, today, I finally discovered what stage three means. I think. Basically, you won’t understand this unless you’re female. And aged or pregnant. You know that squeeze you do to stop yourself peeing, well that’s stage three. That one that you can’t see other folk doing. Of course, it doesn’t work in a practical sense when you’re old otherwise Tenna Ladies’ wouldn’t have been invented: we’d all be standing in the Co-op squeezing bits that have lost their raison d’être happy as Larry.

After this, we fetch our mats and lay on the floor and I start yawning. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is, every time I lay down I want to go to sleep. Some folk are scattered around the water collecting bucket and there’s a hiatus whilst they discuss the weather and how wet they are. I spot some previously unseen liquid by the door but, apparently, someone has spilt their water bottle; or misplaced their umbrella; or forgotten their Tenna Ladies’. We stretch out and draw our legs up to our who knows what. If we feel like it, we can pull our chins up to meet our knees. Snores and farts join the drip, drip of the leaking roof.

And we always finish with a dance. Thankfully, that business with the scarves has been abandoned as has all that Indian nonsense. Today, we’re doing something that involves a hop, skip and a waving of arms. The instructor has her back to us so we can follow her steps more clearly. She is hopping and skipping and jumping like a demented banshee. Behind her, forty pensioners are standing still and waving their arms half-heartedly. And afterwards, we give ourselves a well-earned clap and rush to the loo

The 4.40 to Brentford is rammed as I attempt embarkation at Clapham Junction. From the relative safety of Platform 5, I spot an empty seat which no-one is interested in claiming due, I assume, to the fear that they’ll never escape its confines and will be trapped upon the Waterloo loop at least until 10pm. Hundreds of us are crushed in the doorway: an amoebic mess of humanity gasping for air that defies the intrepid explorer, with only a small suitcase,  to venture further into the jungle of the condemned.

With not inconsiderable force, I gain a seat next to a small child whose pushy father is supervising her extra-curricula activities. This train carries the privately educated offspring of the wealthy classes into the leafy suburbs west of the city: Barnes, Chiswick, Kew and so forth. My tiny travelling companion is busy on her phone on which she has an app comprising the nearest thing she’s going to get to a game before her thirties. In her digital laboratory, she has to choose appropriate colours and activities that will change one element to another – pour the blue contents of a test-tube into the correct receptacle and voila, a liquid will become a gas. The reward will be gaining another informative square to her growing set. For tiny traveller is constructing the periodic table. Having discovered plutonium, she turns and smiles engagingly at me.

‘How old are you’, I demand?

‘Five’.

‘You are scarily clever’, I inform her.

‘Say thank-you to the nice pleb’, says papa.

At Barnes Bridge, most of the train’s cargo, including Marie Curie, fall out through the doors, and possibly into the river for all I know. Jane emerges from the adjacent carriage wherein she’s been entombed since a week last Tuesday.

Saturday sees the predominant reason for my visit and the highlight of the weekend. As a belated birthday gift, I am to be wined and dined aboard a narrow boat which will take us from Paddington Basin to Camden Town and back in three gastronomic hours. With due serendipity, this morning’s Daily Torygraph informs us that the trip, courtesy of the London Shell Company, currently ranks among the top ten eating experiences in our capital. Our set menu for today’s extravaganza comprises Lindisfarne Oyster & Mackeral Tartare with Angel Hair Fries, Crab with Watermelon Radish, Braised Cuttlefish with Mussels and Saffron Aioli, Blonde Ray Wing with Turnips, Black Cabbage and Caper Butter and Apple Streudel with Raspberry and Yoghurt Gelatto. No wonder it’s going to take us three hours and I haven’t even mentioned alcohol.

Naturally, given that the galley is the size of a wardrobe, there are long pauses between each delicious course whilst the crew regroup. However, during these times, we can venture forth to watch the passing scenery. I’ve written about this part of the canal elsewhere but today I learn that we’re passing the Sultan of Oman’s house, the garden of which is the second largest in London after Buckingham Palace. We’re also lucky enough to see some of the animals that live in Regents Park Zoo who were hiding the last time we ventured this way.

Obviously, we need to keep diving back in for more refreshment. As you can see, and as you might have deduced, the accommodation is cosy. No matter. We share our table with three Japanese tourists, two of whom speak no English. We thought you liked speaking with strangers, say my companions.

Those Hanwell ladies are the epitome of generosity. They also have high expectations in the ‘joining in’ department. Later that evening, when the day’s excitement might have proven sufficient for the Dorset contingent, we yomp on down to the allotments at The Fox for a bonfire and BBQ. You probably think we’d eaten enough for one day but, let me tell you, those hot dogs went down a treat.

Sunday, and it’s all aboard the Kew Gardens road train which, forthwith, will ever be known as the Unicorn Express. Or whatever the opposite of an express train is. From the start, driver Christine tells us that the ride will be bumpy. She also informs us of the certainty of being attacked by passing trees. After such cautionary warnings, both of which prove justifiable, Christine’s voice turns strangely soporific.

It’s as though, having dealt with the prosaic nastiness of life, she has fallen back into the world of the …………… unicorn. For Christine soothes the listener whilst simultaneously keeping us awake in anticipation of the last word in the sentence: ‘and through the bushes to your right, you will see the …………..unicorn’. ‘Said mythological creature adorns the gate which royal princesses used to access the gardens. ‘Nowadays, they mostly arrive through the main entrance by car but, in the once-upon-a-time days ……’ Christine trails off into her own world. ‘By what’, we shout. Tube? Bus? Unicorn?’

I duck to avoid a rampaging holly bush that’s attacking us via the glassless window. ‘We’re going to turn …………right’, says Christine. ‘When I come to this part’, she continues, ‘I always feel I’ve arrived in …….’ ‘Where, where’, we demand looking through the trees. ‘………… Narnia’, sighs Christine. Helplessly, we look around for wardrobes and lamp posts. An evil shrub attempts access to our carriage. ‘To your left’, intones the stoned engine driver, ‘is our largest …………’ tree? bush? flower? ………..’picnic table’. claims lunch-denied Christine.

Speaking of which – we have brought a small picnic with us. When this possibility was initially raised, sub-zero temperatures weren’t mentioned. We leave the train, not by the enormous picnic table upon which Aslan was slain, but to perch on a bench by the river overlooking Syon Park, the home of Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland.

The sun was out when we arrived but it’s since disappeared behind a large black cloud. To take my mind off the all pervasive frostbite, I quietly study the amount of pickle in my friends’ sandwiches. I was allowed to add my own pickle to my sandwich this morning. Reader, this probably doesn’t seem such a big deal. However, I am staying in a house of kindness in which I’m allowed to do nothing. On being presented with the Branston jar, it was to garnish bread that had been sliced for me with geometric precision on which identical slices of cheese had been lovingly displayed. Thus, spooning out the pickle was a big deal; but not literally, as, obviously, I only took a polite scraping. I can’t help thinking I’ve missed a trick as I notice the abundance of pickle oozing out between their slices of bread.

Anyway, I’m spared the opportunity of commenting on the unequal distribution of pickle by the arrival of Edith and her husband. Edith wants to know whether that’s Syon Park across the river. Apparently the husband, who has now disappeared, told her it was. B & J, mouths crammed with Branston politely inform Edith that it is indeed Ralph Percy’s gaff. And that should be an end to it but Edith is like a bloody terrier and won’t clear off.

It should be blindingly obvious, even to the thickest of dimwits, even with the pickle disparity, that we are three friends on a bench having a private picnic. She’s asked the question, received an answer, described the overhanging cloud, obtained directions on how to get to Syon Park, now knows about opening times, told us where she lives, discovered the precise address of Jane’s sister and for all I know expanded on her views of globalisation and world poverty. I’ve stopped listening. I’m sat on the far end of the haemorrhide inducing bench and have devoured my sandwiches, a pork pie and a bottle of water before she finally toddles off into oblivion. Those two turn round and are surprised to see me without any lunch. ‘We thought you liked talking to strange people’, they say.

And later, there’s a delicious home-cooked roast chicken dinner, silly board games a tearful viewing of Tim and Pru, and early to bed. Thank-you dear ladies of Hanwell for a glorious weekend.