With regards to not landing at aerodromes, does it tend to only be hotels/pubs/restaurants you land at then?

Yes, mostly hotels/pubs/restaurants for an afternoon or day out, but also overnights in some locations and even landing in a few friends gardens (bigger homes outside of London of course).

The majority of my flying is with family/friends; I have two sons so also take their friends and/or parents out also. Quite often, I'll make two separate landings even if just out for lunch - lunch at one location then back in the helicopter to have coffees somewhere else.

From any of the London area aerodromes, you'll have around 50ish places to go within a 30-35 minute flight range.

My 'base' airport is somewhat busy and a lot of time is wasted waiting for clearance for the active rwy....but then I see the News Chopper 4 taking off from the ramp I'm a little envious, to say the least

Working in the US. I was lucky enough to have a day out and took a Grand-Canyon flight in a Jet-Ranger. I was hooked from that moment, and told my colleagues at the time that I was going to do 'that' sometime, of course they just smiled with those 'yeah-whatever' looks.
Saved hard and got a PPL in the UK, saved even harder and got my B206 rating, then spent way too much money flying to sites and airfields for bacon sandwiches and coffee.
Mid-life crisis hit hard, so I sold almost everything I owned (the wife's car took a bit of negotiating...), ignored advice from friends, and completed my CPL training, and advanced onto an FI too. I even managed to find work, not easy, but got remunerated for my efforts.
Apart from the well-documented pressure from clients, and some horrible weather at times, I enjoyed almost every moment, flew amazing places, Ireland, Kenya, all UK, even delivered a machine to Greece.
Got struck down by the 2008 recession, ended up working for friends and even driving HGV's, and despite a lot of effort, never managed to fly commercially again.
I now work as an AFISO in Scotland, and love it when a PDG machine, or even better, the Coastguard turn up. Basically, I just love helicopters!
(Oh yes, I did get a FW licence somewhere, but got bored and hardly ever mention it as the rotary world is just more interesting )

Where in Scotland?

Shetland, Tingwall

"Learnt in the very forgiving Bell 47, so no big deal, the Scout on the other hand.............."

Megan, now I'm curious about the handling of the Scout, sounds adventurous

I learned to fly fixed wing in 1980 and 20 years later at the age of 55 discovered helicopters. Fast forward another 20 years and I own and still fly both but my annual flying hours are 90% rotary and 10% fixed wing. That is a good indicator as to which I prefer, despite the fact that the cost of helicopter flying makes that of fixed wing pale into insignificance.

Only the autos were adventurous, fell out of the sky like a brick and absolutely no inertia in the rotor system. Other than that it was an absolute delight to fly, about the nearest thing to fighter handling, best governor ever, no overspeeds or droop no matter what you did with the collective. The down side was that being such an early example of a turbine helo its capabilities (payload/range) were somewhat less than a Kiowa (B206).

Mmmmm...Scouts... 🙂

[Wasp] And you must remember overcooking the recovery from practice autos and provoking the machine gun stutter of compressor stall. No sweat, because the Nimbus has a first stage centrifugal compressor to sort it out. Engine off landings were really exciting with the ground approaching ridiculously fast and no margin for error in the flare.
As for payload and range, you develop an acute sense of point of no return over the sea.