After a full day out and about, we were rather exhausted and slept in very late. I have no regrets about that. While I was getting ready for the day, Jessica walked over to Tesco to buy some food, and in her purchases was a little cake with One Direction members plastered upon it. Of course we had to eat our favorite member. I’m destined to be with Harry and live happily ever after, but Jessica wanted that one, so I let her have it. Instead, I munched on Zayn’s dreamy face. The cake was tragic, reader, but it was such fun, so we didn’t mind all that much.

Jessica didn’t want to leave the apartment all day, so I decided to go out on my own. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do, so I decided to head to Pierre Hermé’s shop in Knightsbridge, eat a few macarons, and figure it out from there.

Knightsbridge is a really nice part of London, especially when you get off the main road where all the shoppers and tourists are milling about. Nobody knows how to walk in London, which is endlessly infuriating. They walk on the wrong side of the sidewalk and then they stop and then they turn around and then they walk on the other side and then they stop and they’re awful and the worst people in the entirety of the world. Off that horrible main road, though, are rather peaceful residential areas and the calmer shopping streets. I love to walk past the windows filled with wonderfully expensive couture and dream of a day that I wear a bespoke suit that fits me like a glove.

Pierre Hermè’s shop was just as lovely as ever and I had a nice time chatting with the shop assistants about the flavors and trash talking Ladurée, a competitor that I really don’t care for at all. Their macarons are always far too soft and quite unpleasant. Go to Pierre, reader, I implore you. The girl I was talking to was clearly delighted by this discussion, but slightly scandalized as well. I had fun with that.

I sat down at a café for coffee and some WiFi and tried to figure out what to do. Nothing was jumping out at me, so I thought of the picture I had seen on Facebook earlier:

And I thought to myself, what would Patsy do?

It didn’t take me long to figure out. She’d go shopping, sweetie, and then go for a glass of Bolly, darling. This all sounded excellent to me, so I headed over to Picadilly Circus to visit the Karl Lagerfeld shop on Regent Street. These shops were not in existence the last time I was in Europe, so it was a terrible thrill to visit one. Karl is another one of my personal icons. He’s fabulous.

The shop itself was rather spartan and there wasn’t anything that I could justify buying. Disheartened, I was going to walk out, but then I saw it, the perfect phone case for me. Karl’s silhouette on a British flag. It’s divine, reader. I happily paid for it and was thrilled by the elegant bag that it was wrapped up in. A good bag is one of the most important parts of shopping — it shows the peasants where you’ve been and how superior you are to them.

The Royal Portrait Gallery was open late, so I decided to pop over there and take a look around. I enjoyed this visit tremendously! There was a gallery opening downstairs, so I looked in on that and sighed. I don’t understand the art people are making these days. It’s a bunch of squiggles. To me, art is all about conveying a story through some type of medium — I’ve never understood a story told in squiggles. The Baroque galleries were rather interesting and there were busts all over the place. I love a good bust.

There was a rather famous painting of Shakespeare, so I stopped to examine it in greater detail. Shakespeare just looks like a creepy old man. I have never been fond of his work, which I suppose I should be ashamed of, but I really don’t care. It’s uninteresting to me. Why couldn’t Romeo and Juliet just calm down for a few minutes?

I had a better time in the galleries that showed famous faces in recent British history. There was a truly stunning painting of the Queen from the 60s. It’s massive and stark and she looks regal and beautiful and I want to have a copy of it above my mantel. (I need to get a mantel first, I suppose.)

There was some awful Andy Warhol shit that I ran by. There was that terrible painting of the Duchess of Cambridge that we all laughed at a while back. Then there was a whitewashed room with a low resolution television that played a constant loop of David Beckham napping. He looked good, but I didn’t understand. Are we supposed to be appreciating the human form or just David? Who knows? I made this face:

Other art I enjoyed:

I loved this one — it was HIUGE — and all the faces were excellently done and unique. That’s a great talent.

This painting cost £10,000,000. I’m still reeling in shock.

“Can I go home?”

This is the greatest painting in the gallery. This is why:

I’m thinking about bringing back turbans. I love them.

*so done with your shit*

This woman is my QUEEN. Look at the disgust on her face. When this painting was first displayed the public was appalled and they called it GROTESQUE. I want this painting.

The royal family relaxing at home. Our current Queen Elizabeth is second from the right.

ANNA WINTOUR!

Finished, I recalled my list of what Patsy would do. She’d drink champagne. So, I hopped back into the tube to Harvey Nichols where I was soon elegantly sat in their lovely restaurant overlooking Knightsbridge out my window. I was in heaven. A champagne TROLLEY was brought over to me, laden with various bottles.

After making my selection, I happily sipped as I sat there. I love champagne and I love to treat myself to elegant excursions. My happiest memories are ones where I’m all alone being treated like royalty, in ritzy establishments — at the Chateau Marmont, at the Drake, in Chanel boutiques, and here at Harvey Nicks, as we regulars call it.

My starter came out soon after, an artichoke heart velouté, which was painfully classy. You are first served a bowl of finely chopped greens and other fully cooked vegetables and then the piping hot velouté is poured over this, instantly cooking the greens. It’s a terribly elegant presentation and if you want to impress your dinner guests, I recommend this service. The soup was excellent and I enjoyed every bit.

I relaxed after my starter only to discover that my queen, Joanna Lumley had been in town the day before. I was a bit crushed emotionally as she’s one of my favorite people in the entire world, if not my absolute favorite person — she’s Patsy Stone! — and she hosts all those wonderful travel shows, like Joanna Lumley’s Nile — but I know that our paths will cross someday. I have an odd way of making that happen.

Now my entrée was arriving and it was equally beautiful. I’d share photos with you, but the lighting in there was so dim that I didn’t bother. You probably wouldn’t enjoy seeing blurry blobs. This dish consisted of gnocchi, baby leeks, broad beans, very tiny cucumbers, and some kind of leaf. It was quite tasty and I enjoyed it very much.

Of course I was going to have dessert and a coffee, so I ordered an espresso and something called a mango terrine. I didn’t imagine that this dish would be the most amazing thing I’d ever put to my lips, but when I took the first bite, I was near to weeping and swooning. Mango and passion fruit are used together a lot, and this was no exception. The mango terrine was served with a passion fruit cannoli, passion fruit sorbet, and a passion fruit sauce. I was in heaven, reader. I’ve never had something so good as that passion fruit sorbet. I’m going to dream about it for the rest of my life.

In my mind, my memories went wandering and suddenly I was back in Paris at this charming little restaurant across the Seine from Notre Dame. I had gone there with all of my classmates. We drank the finest wine and ate the tastiest foods and had a charming time talking about cats. I wasn’t drunk — and you don’t seem to get drunk on quality alcohol — but I was alarmingly content with the world around me. And I felt just like that in Harvey Nichols. It was nice…I think it was the champagne. I really love champagne.

I spent a lot of money. Like…a lot.

Then I hurried back home. Hurried is the wrong word choice, since there is no way to hurry on the Tube. Well, you could probably hurry on the Tube, but when you get to the Overground, you’re absolutely screwed. That thing is slow and awful and is jam-packed with the poor. I hate everything about it. But I finally made it back…in a rainstorm.

Jessica and I darted over to Tesco because she hadn’t let the apartment all day long and I experienced something that I will never, not in all my days, recover from. I was not allowed to use my credit card because it didn’t have a chip. THIS INFURIATES ME!!! I have written letters with annoying regularity to my credit card companies, kindly demanding that they issue me a chip card immediately. I’m turned down every time. They claim that it is unnecessary. Bitch, please! Back in the flat, I wrote an alarmingly aggressive note to the one that denied me. I haven’t got a response back, yet, so perhaps I went a bit far, but I WAS INFURIATED.