No. 27 · The Selection · age 25
Vanessa in the travel section
A striped top, a pocket phrasebook, and Daunt's shelves read country by country.
Available today Midweek, bookshop hours into dinner
- Age
- 25
- Height
- 173 cm · 5 ft 8 in
- Hair
- Long sandy brown, balayage
- Eyes
- Hazel
- Figure
- Slim
- Languages
- English
- Home district
- Paddington
Profile updated September 2026 · portraits checked in person
Behind the glass
Vanessa spends more time in the travel section of a bookshop than most people spend on actual holidays. Slim and 173 cm, she wears her sandy brown hair long, softened with balayage, and her hazel eyes turn greener in daylight. Her style is quiet and coastal: a striped top, a light trench, trainers for the walk and a tiny scent bottle in her bag.
Sweet, curious and relaxed, she asks questions because she genuinely wants the answers. Mid twenties and endlessly curious about words, she speaks English and is always chipping away at another language from a pocket phrasebook; she will not claim any of them until she can hold a whole conversation. She cycles all over the city, collects small bottles of scent from every place she visits, and keeps a notebook of words that do not translate.
Her W1 afternoon belongs to Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street, the Edwardian shop with the long oak gallery and skylights where the books are arranged by country rather than by subject. She leads you to a country you have never visited and hands you three books about it. Then coffee nearby, an unhurried walk down to the foot of the High Street, and an early dinner if you are hungry. She will ask where you grew up and actually remember the answer.
Home is Paddington, a short hop from Baker Street and the top of Marylebone High Street. Midweek evenings are her easiest. Send a message via booking and name a country you have always wanted to see.
Vanessa's ladder
Whole pounds for whole hours, and the figure shown is the figure paid. Travel inside Zones 1 and 2 comes included; every term sits on the rates page.
| Length | Fee | Good for | Message |
|---|---|---|---|
| One hour60 min | £250 | A drink in the bar or an hour of talk upstairs | Ask |
| Ninety minutes90 min | £400 | Unhurried, with time for a second glass | Ask |
| Two hours2 hrs | £500 | Dinner nearby and the stroll back to your hotel | Ask |
| Three hours3 hrs | £700 | A show and a late supper, or a long night in | Ask |
| Dinner date4 hrs | £900 | Four hours built around a proper table | Ask |
| Overnight10 hrs | £1,800 | Ten hours, late evening through to breakfast | Ask |
| WeekendFri to Sun | On request | Priced around your plans by the desk | Ask |
Message ready
Fill the brackets, press send, and keep the room number back until the booking is confirmed.
Hello, I would like to book Vanessa on [date] at [time] for [duration]. I am staying at [hotel name], and will share the room number on confirmation.
Vanessa after dark
Four o'clock, under the skylights, and she already has a stack of books waiting on a table near the back. She asks you to choose a country you have never visited. Then she finds a novel set there, a travel memoir and a small phrasebook, and reads you the opening line of each.
Coffee follows at a pavement table on the High Street. She tells you her favourite untranslatable word and asks you for one of yours, and she writes it down if it is good. The early dinner is somewhere simple and pleasant, and she lets you order for both of you. When she leaves she presses a paperback into your hands, with a slip of paper marking a page she thought you might like.
Vanessa, asked
Saudade. It means missing something you may never have had. I think about it on long bike rides along the canal, usually on Sundays.
Cut grass and sea salt. Nothing in a bottle has matched it yet, but I keep trying, one small sample at a time.
The Regent's Canal towpath early on a Sunday, before the joggers wake up and the narrowboats light their stoves.
What guests wrote
This pane has no guest notes yet. They go up after genuine bookings only, once the desk has checked them; each carries a first name and when it was written, nothing explicit, and Vanessa can ask for any of them to come off the glass.
- 5 min readDurrants and the old Marylebone manner, from the panelled bar to breakfastWood panels, deep armchairs and porters who remember a name. The Georgian hotel behind the Wallace Collection, how its manners shape an evening, and who to invite along.
- 6 min readArtesian hours: The Langham, where Regent Street turns into Portland PlaceLondon's first grand hotel sits where the shops give way to Portland Place. Three rooms downstairs, one famous bar, and how an evening there is timed from the first glass to the last.
