Spilling out of Riverside and on to the sunlit streets of Hammersmith I made a beeline for a sign that had caught my eye last week. On the corner of Fulham Palace Road and Chancellor's Road stands an estate agent's office called "Lawsons & Daughters". The sign had made me pause for a moment and reflect upon the fact that I do not believe I had ever seen anything other than "& Sons" before. As such, I wanted to uncover the story behind it.

The story is anticlimactic, I'm afraid. I spoke to the manager, who told me rather brusquely that "I haven't got any daughters, there's no daughters on the horizon and I only called it '& Daughters' as a marketing ploy since no one else did". 

Disappointing, to say the least. Nonetheless, I shall definitely aim to meander back past Lawsons & Daughters if only to take a pause and reflect on the rarity of such a sign.

Continuing down Fulham Palace Road I came to Den London, which is both a cafe and a florists and sits across the street from the Charing Cross Hospital. I went in and ordered a latte, enjoying the all too rare experience of sipping coffee immersed in the scent of fresh flowers. It is run by Raj and his wife, and while they were both lovely and friendly it soon became clear that the language barrier would prove too difficult to surmount for the purposes of our event. I was therefore  forced to bid them a fond farewell and continue rambling, leaving them a flyer in the slim hope they might choose to attend one of the events.

Pausing outside the hospital to gaze pensively at a pair of ambulance drivers indulging their nicotine habit, I walked back up towards Hammersmith before finding myself stood inside a small courier's speaking to Kyle, one of the business partners.

Kyle was lovely, telling me about how he had moved to the UK from Poland eight years ago with a master's degree in Computer Science. During his first summer here he had worked his friend's stall in Camden Town Market before they had both taken it to Glastonbury. Realising he could do this on his own he set up his own festival stall business, which did incredibly well over the next three summers. However, since it only really worked for three months out of the year, he also started a taxi service, working as the booker himself. That became so successful that it was bought by Addison Lee, at which point he began working in their IT & Systems department before leaving to start the current courier service with his business partner at the beginning of 2013. They have, so far anyway, been doing very well. He enjoyed talking to me and loved the idea of Stop-Look-Listen, but he is going on holiday with his girlfriend over the weekend and will not be back until Wednesday next.

Wishing Kyle and his business the best, I let my feet carry me to the shopping centre that engulfs the entrance to the District & Piccadilly section of Hammersmith station. It was in here that I met Tom, a young man running a flower stall not ten yards from the gatekeeping Oyster barriers.

Tom had worked the stall, which belongs to his Uncle, as a part-time job until he had qualified as a carpenter, at which point he had thrown himself in to that wholeheartedly. However, his experience working on construction sites and being yelled at by foreman for a measly paycheque inevitably left him yearning for the better pay and personable chat of the flower stall. Although his commute and eleven-hour working day are exhausting, he truly loves what he does and is saving up to buy the stall from his uncle, who also owns stalls in Acton, Ruislip and Chiswick.

While talking to Tom, we were approached by a woman in her sixties holding a container of porridge from Prêt à Manger, which she presented to Tom with a "There you go my darling, with the sweet stuff the way you like it". He took it gratefully while she took another container to the man running the sweet stall opposite. I raised a questioning eyebrow to Tom who smiled and said that she did this every day. Before I could ask him anything more, she came towards me and clasped my hands in hers, proclaiming "Your hands are freezing, darling! Let me get you some porridge!"

Touched and alarmed in equal measure, I was trapped by the fact that I truly cannot stand porridge in any of its forms and had therefore to decline, as politely as I could. As I watched, transfixed, as she vanished around the corner, I heard Tom tell me that she spent every day in Prêt; that she took care of him and the other stall owner.

Leaving Tom, who does not work on the weekends, I followed my mysterious porridge godmother, catching up with her, as promised, inside the Pret. She was sat across from an elderly gentleman, the two thoroughly engrossed in each other's conversation.

I went in to the shop and ordered another latte, ever-so-slowly adding and stirring sugar, watching out of the corner of my eye. She suddenly got up and walked over to the sugar counter, at which point I turned and opened my mouth to speak. She cut me off with "OH GOOD! A warm drink. You needed that, darling!" once more clasping my hand. Deftly avoiding spillage, I gave a brief explanation of what I was doing and told her how fascinating I found her. Her name is Ella and she agreed to meet me at noon tomorrow.

Stumbling back in to the sun, I wandered, somewhat dazed, up King Street. I went in to a store called Bushwhacker Whole Foods and chatted briefly to the attendant there. Although fascinating and a supporter of the project, he was obviously very shy and I did not wish to make him uncomfortable, so I continued on my way. 

Using Ravenscourt Park as the edge of my world, I turned back towards Riverside. Pausing briefly in St Paul's Centre, I was walking back down Hammersmith Bridge Road when something caught my eye. Something bright orange. Truly, gloriously, alarmingly bright orange.

I cautiously approached down Rutland Grove. A car - a CAR! What a car. Compact, clearly designed for speed and nothing but; a death trap in the wrong hands but nothing short of sensational in the right; the sort of pure racing car that a particular breed of slightly psychotic, adrenaline-fuelled child dreams of.

Whose car could this be? If only - if ONLY - the owner and driver of this angel would somehow make himself apparent, they would surely be a character and a half. As if by magic, a head suddenly emerged as I drew closer.

Hands covered in grease, sweating in the sunshine, treating his baby with the tenderness of any parent: this was Justin. He told me how he races when he can, showed me the engine, took me through the details of which parts were second hand, which he'd bought off ebay, which had been hand-crafted by one of his friends (an obviously gifted engineer).

Then he told me of his life. What a life. Originally from Australia, he came to Rome with his Italian girlfriend twenty-six years ago. She had then left him, at which point he made his way to the ski slopes of France, skiing for the next few months. When the season came to a close, he hitched a ride back to Paris with the ski instructor and crashed on his floor for three months before coming over to London. Seven years in television journalism, ten years with MTV, now a freelance producer happily married to his Dutch wife (who he met when he auditioned her as a presenter for MTV). His garage houses two motorbikes (beautiful things) and his stories are witty and enthralling.

I am meeting him tomorrow for a pint and I hope most sincerely he agrees to be a story-partner. If not, then at least I know tomorrow's drink will be a fascinating one.