Maida Vale escorts in W9, where the canals meet at Little Venice

The pool at the junction is named after the poet Robert Browning, who lived nearby on Warwick Crescent. For much of the year the Puppet Theatre Barge is moored on the water, and in the warmer months waterbuses leave for Camden along the Regent's Canal, vanishing into the Maida Hill tunnel a few hundred metres east. Rembrandt Gardens, a small green on the bank, has benches that catch the late sun.

Away from the water, Maida Vale is quiet by design. Elgin Avenue, Randolph Avenue and Castellain Road are lined with mansion blocks, porters' lodges and large communal gardens hidden behind them. Two pubs are worth knowing: The Warrington, on Warrington Crescent, with its lavish Victorian interior, and The Prince Alfred on Formosa Street, where carved wooden snob screens still divide the bar. On Delaware Road, behind a plain frontage, are the BBC studios where decades of radio sessions were recorded.

Maida Vale has almost no hotels of its own, and most bookings go to flats and houses. The nearest hotel rooms are a short ride south around Paddington: Novotel London Paddington, on Kingdom Street, is a 10 minute towpath walk from Little Venice, while Hilton London Paddington and Hotel Indigo London Paddington sit beside the station. Guests staying there often spend the evening in W9 and walk back along the canal.

For a private address the desk takes the name on the booking, the building, the flat number and any porter or entry detail, so she can walk straight in. Hotels and homes alike are visited the way any guest would visit; no hotel mentioned here has a partnership with us.

Maida Vale station, on the Bakerloo line, is 1 minute from the junction of Elgin Avenue and Randolph Avenue, its entrance still wearing its early twentieth century tiles. Warwick Avenue, also Bakerloo, is about 4 minutes' walk from the canal at Little Venice. Paddington is one stop south of Warwick Avenue, which is how several companions arrive.

W9 is Zone 2, and that keeps a companion's journey inside the fee, as it is everywhere in the first two zones.

The process keeps the same minutes as a hotel booking. Message on WhatsApp or Telegram, receive a reply in 10 to 15 minutes and confirm the address details and your full name. A canal side flat needs one more line, the entry code or which bell to ring. Expect her at the door in less than an hour, and quicker still when she sets out from Paddington.

Residential evenings tend to run longer. Three hours at £700 suit dinner at home and conversation that does not watch the clock, and a Maida Vale overnight, ten hours at £1,800, can end with coffee beside the canal. Who books here? Mostly residents of the mansion flats, and guests staying in the Paddington hotels who have walked up the towpath and would like the evening to continue.

19:00, she arrives at your flat on Randolph Avenue. 19:20, a walk down to Little Venice and along the towpath beside the moorings. 19:45, a drink on a canal side terrace while the boats light up. 20:30, supper at a neighbourhood table on Formosa Street or Clifton Road. 21:45, back up Warrington Crescent, past the pub with the gilded interior, and home. 22:00, three hours complete, £700.

No one on the lineup lives in Maida Vale, but three live one Bakerloo stop beyond Warwick Avenue, in Paddington. Nora knows the canal side terraces well and likes a day's notice. Laura is the one for a same day request. Vanessa enjoys the towpath at an easy pace.

A few stops further, Liana comes up from Marylebone with a fondness for the plant nursery near Warwick Avenue, and Violetta reaches Little Venice from Belgravia in about 20 minutes.

Paddington is south, along the towpath or one stop on the Bakerloo. Edgware Road is the same road under a different name, running south from the canal bridge. For anyone arriving by train, Paddington Station is 7 minutes away by taxi.