Show weeks, long weekends and the same companion each evening

Every line below is optional and every line can move. What matters is that the shape is set out once, early.

• Monday: two hours after the stands close, dinner aboard the yacht hotel on Royal Victoria Dock.
• Tuesday: free. The client dinner, alone.
• Wednesday: the dinner date, four hours, at Wood Wharf with the towers lit.
• Thursday: the awards night, three hours, briefed like any corporate evening.
• Friday: an overnight, the week finished, coffee by the river on Saturday morning.

Give Philippa the whole shape at once: arrival and departure dates, which evenings you want, a rough length for each, the hotel, and any evening that carries a dress code. The reply names a companion who can cover the full run, the figure for every evening and one confirmation to keep. On each day itself the usual check is repeated, briefly, and an E14 hotel or apartment is reached within the usual window.

At the weekend the estate changes character. The towers go quiet, the hotels empty, tables open up and the river takes over. A weekend here might mean Saturday lunch in Greenwich, the cable car across to the Royal Docks at dusk, dinner on the quay and a slow Sunday in the park. It can just as easily mean very little: late breakfasts, a walk along the river path, a film at Crossrail Place. Weekends are priced on request and quoted in writing; nothing is agreed until you have read the figure.

For a week on the estate, a room at Canary Riverside Plaza or the Marriott on West India Quay puts the river and the restaurants on your doorstep. Guests working at ExCeL often prefer the hotels on Royal Victoria Dock for the short walk to the halls, then move to the estate for the weekend, when E14 is quieter and the tables easier to book. A serviced apartment near Wood Wharf suits anyone staying longer than five nights, and the desk treats it exactly like a hotel.

Evening one is an introduction. By evening two there is a shorthand: the restaurant you liked, the subject you avoid, the hour you tire. By evening three nothing needs explaining. That shorthand is what an arrangement buys beyond convenience. Her days stay her own; your time together is the evenings you agreed, not the whole week.

Guests who fly into City Airport every month sometimes ask for a standing arrangement: the same companion, the first evening of each visit, confirmed a week ahead. It runs on the same ladder and the same terms as any other booking. The only difference is order: when your dates arrive, the desk asks her first, before the evening is offered to anyone else. If a stay moves from a hotel to a serviced apartment halfway through, send the new address and the rest of the run follows it.

Vanessa, 173 cm with sandy balayage, understands the rhythm of a show week and likes dinner aboard once the stands have closed for the day. Margo, calm and in her early thirties, prefers long bookings and is at her best on the second and third evenings. Karolina, precise and dry, likes a weeknight with a clear shape. Patricia prefers her evenings arranged a day or two ahead, which suits a planned run perfectly. Three of the four are among the statuesque companions.