Au revoir

I'm off to London tomorrow for a couple of days. It's no use going with the Sage - he works out his appointments and books a ticket home at the earliest opportunity. So he will go up on Tuesday for his morning appointment, meet me at 1 o'clock to view a sale and then we'll come home on the 2.30 train. I, on the other hand, will hope (this is British Rail, hope is the operative word) to get in at 10.24 on Monday, meet Martin and Wendz at the Wallace collection - I haven't been there for years and years and there is, in addition, a loan exhibition from the Louvre at present. On Tuesday morning, I hope to go to the Russian loan exhibition at the Royal Academy. I'll spend the night with El and Phil. I am prepared to be delighted.

With all the Tales of Yore I've been telling, you know nothing about the events of the week. One of the highlights was seeing two barn owls, within a minute of each other, flying in front of my car. Barn owls are so beautiful and one doesn't see them that often - largely, of course, because they are nocturnal. This was at about 4.30 and the day was just drifting towards dusk.

At the time, I was on my way to Norwich to meet Ro and go to the cinema. We saw No Country for Old Men, the current Coen brothers' film. We thought it was very good indeed, with some excellent performances and no duds, and some cracking dialogue. We were falling about with laughter (though it was very understated and dry, don't expect wisecracks) between bloodbaths, and there was a truly disturbing villain, who started off appearing to be a psycopath and then turned out to be more complex than that, and with a worrying charm, on occasion. If you like the Coen brothers and you don't mind a lot of nasty deaths, you'll be fine. If you are a gentler soul, don't go there. There was one scene (bullet being extracted from self) which I couldn't watch, and I am not that squeamish.

Ooh, I'm watching television and Javier Bardem (the villain) just won a BAFTA. Well deserved, and I'd have said the same if Tommy Lee Jones (the sheriff) had won it.

We duly celebrated our 35th engagement anniversary last night, with fillet steak, spinach, fried potatoes, sprouting broccoli, parsnips, mushrooms and tomatoes, followed by pineapple (this being a pudding-free zone). I asked the butcher if he had fillet steak - "yes, but you might need a mortgage" he replied. "Money no object" I declared expansively. He's waiting for our actual anniversary in May, as he hopes to retire on the proceeds.

Today, I ate cake. Jo was on coffee rota and she'd make one specially - what's a girl to do? It was only polite - and delicious to boot. Afterwards, I couldn't manage lunch (three months without cake and even a small slice is surprisingly filling), and ate rice cakes and plain yoghurt and only felt moderately wicked.