Thought we’d wrapped shooting last night? Nope. It’s never that simple.

Day 11 – Saturday 24th August – San Francisco and home

We’d filmed every scene in the script, every bit of dialogue (well, apart from the bits we crossed out, rewrote, abandoned, or generally disregarded. Which is normal), but we’d known for a couple of weeks that we had a hole to fill: the odd schedule dipsy-doodle around Las Vegas, where we filmed the magicians, ditched my beloved Jeep thing, then flew to San Francisco in the nick of time to film at the Exploratorium had left us with a problem. In the grammar of the film, how had we travelled to San Francisco? It’s not an irrelevant problem, in that one of the stories the film tells is of Alom’s Summer holiday road trip. How does that resolve?

“Stuff it,” we thought, “Let’s arrive by boat.” We chose to ignore that the geography doesn’t work, and set out.

First stop: breakfast. I’m delighted to say that I now have a favourite San Francisco diner, the New Village Cafe. Great place.

Next up: a coffee shop. Er… yeah, you read that right. The previous afternoon I was flaked out knackered, and Alom had to steer me around and tell me what to point the camera at. This morning Alom was in a similar state, and when that happens to him there’s only one remedy: tea. We found Alom some tea.

Suitably restored, we hoofed it to the top of Lombard, the classic ‘twistiest road’. Camera, shots, you know the drill by now. Also:

…some cable car exteriors.

Then on to the piers, where we hopped on one of the tacky tourist tours. Which, you know… was great. Partly because the America’s Cup was already in town (starts today!) and there were helicopters zooming about and giant catamarans zipping around the Bay. And I do mean ‘zipping.’ The sheer speed those things can reach is… terrifying, frankly.

Our clunky ferry, meanwhile, sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz. Alom, finally, looked pretty chilled – perhaps it really was a holiday after all?

Back to the hotel to pick up our bags, then out to the airport for one last demo (bought in the Exploratorium shop) and possibly the least-comfortable flight I’ve ever been on. Serves me right for being lanky.

After that there was merely the trip across London and up the East Coast Main Line, but somewhere in there it became Sunday. I’ll never get used to spherical planets.