Day Out

Basically I would spend some time in the garden if it were a nice day, pruning, mowing the lawn and generally tidying up. There's an awful lot of pruning to do. Then I might go for a swim. I tend to have three 20 minute sessions in the pool every week at Dolphin Square (071-798 8686) which is conveniently near the House of Commons. I managed to work down one notch on my belt recently. I don't find much fun in swimming backwards and forwards in an indoor pool but by all accounts its the best form of exercise, better than trying to run round Cricklewood, where I live, avoiding the dog turd.

I wouldn't eat out for lunch. I'd have a bowl of soup and some toasted bread or something, a light lunch. I would then either go for a walk in a central London park, Regents or Hyde Park, or go to the cinema. There's only one in the whole of Brent so you have to go into London for that. I'm fairly promiscuous about films - I'll basically sit down and watch anything. I like browsing in the book shops around Charing Cross Road. I'll happily spend an hour in one without buying anything. For some reason cars are more oppressive in London than somewhere like Paris. There aren't many places you can sit out on the pavement with a cup of coffee unless you want to get early lung cancer. I don't like smoke and noise, so pubs are out.

In the evening I might go to the Tricycle Theatre, the local fringe theatre in Kilburn, but I'm not really up to all that planning. My favourite restaurant is an Italian one called The Pavillion in Poland Street (071-437 8774), I go there more than any other. But basically these last four years I've been trying to get the garden right. This summer I must have spent 50 per cent of my spare time in the garden.

Ken Livingstone is appearing in A Woman's Guide to Adultery, screened on ITV from 29 Nov.