Really, I just need the loo. Whereas, in Hong Kong, I’d look for a plush hotel or a McDonald’s along my journey when nature called, in London, I look for a pub.

Smack-bang in the heart of Covent Garden, it’s the painted sign outside that grabs my attention. A monk, a sheath of wheat, and a goat adorn it.

British people like to congregate outside pubs as they smoke cigarettes and swig pints and large glasses of wine poured precisely by measure. It’s just past midday on the weekend, so only two act as sentinels.

Inside smells like fish fingers. I see ‘Ladies’ hand painted in linked white lettering above an arched wooden door. Relief is near.

Maybe I’ll stay a while? Assimilate. I have nowhere else to be now that my course has finished.

I order a cider and settle into a nook down the back, opposite a tiled fireplace with stylised tulips and foxgloves creeping up the sides. Dark wood abounds. The curved leather banquette is warm and welcoming. The couple arguing next to me about whether they should stay or go, not so much.

A Union Jack flag sits next to framed vintage advertisements from wartime. “Go by Shanks’ Pony. Leave room for those with longer journeys.”

It feels like this boozer has seen some things. I wonder how long it’s been around. Google says: 1879. That’s a lot of ale and conversations.

My favourite design choice is the pair of stained glass doors which have been repurposed as a fake ceiling above my head. The Harlequin-esque patterns are coloured as the rainbow bouncing light playfully too and fro.

Echoing the toilet, arches are repeated on the side wall. A sole panel has a shelf which houses a magnum of Champagne on show like a prized hunting trophy.

Where I rest my drink looks like a vintage sewing table with an elaborate inset of metal confluencing in a rose or maybe a geranium on the base. The patterns, the colours, the icons, they all seem symbolic somehow.

Why do I always feel like I’m unravelling a riddle in England? Like I’m missing something that everyone else gets.

Shields, and swords, and letters, and numbers, heraldry, crests, and religious reliefs.

“Careless talk costs lives.”

But wait, there’s more…