In the spotlight

The sleeper journey back to London was uneventful - no snow held up the train. Hooray! After a game of Scrabble (Fred won, again) and a cup of Horlicks, I had a good night's sleep and was awakened by the arrival of breakfast at 7am. London was very quiet, with very few commuters on their way to work. Surprise, surprise, the Thameslink line was down (sigh, tut, welcome back) so a taxi took us swiftly to London Bridge where we caught the train home. Rain, rain, rain rather than snow, snow, snow all day. I prefer the snow and quite miss the blanket of white everywhere.

Once home and after we'd said 'hello' to two happy guinea pigs and one rapturous cat, Fred set about trying to open the back door. He eventually managed to bash it open by reaching through the cat flap and banging on the outside of the door with a mallet. I took off the draughtproofing and now the door shuts without a karate kick, though we may freeze in the breeze. The countdown to a new door starts now. The birds have been fed for the first time in a month and I've lit a fire (the coal was out the back and I didn't manage to train the cat to fetch it).

Rather than stay indoors, we took up Fred's dad's suggestion of going into London for an adventure. We started by queueing to see Avatar, but the IMAX was sold out months ago. Instead, we enjoyed a hot chocolate and Scrabble (Fred won, again) at the IMAX cafe, where I spotted this spider overhead having its own cinematic experience.

Our adventure took us to the Royal Academy to see Wild Thing - an exhibition of Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska and Gill. Out of the three, it was Gill's work that made the most impression on me. I love his carvings. I also especially like Gaudier-Brzeska's Woman and Dog.

I treated Fred to cake at Patisserie Valerie, then we browsed the Piccadilly bookshops before heading home to watch 'Star Wars'.

Happy Birthday to Fred! xx