I'm suffering from a bad attack of January lethargy; not being a morning person, I never seem to catch the day before it's nearly over and it doesn't seem worth setting out. But at long last, having been scheduling a visit to Dulwich Picture Gallery pretty much every day since before Christmas, I made it to the Tove Jansson exhibition for the last hour or so yesterday afternoon ... and it was packed, busier than I'd ever seen it there before. Silly me, when I could easily have gone on a weekday. (It would have been a good idea to book.)

I have to confess that I've never read the Moomin books; I'm not sure that they'd have appealed to me as a child. Now I can see their charm.
But there's only so many Moomins you can take in one afternoon. I was interested to see her satirical illustrations from the 1930s - when, if you look closely, the Snork sometimes appears beside her signature ...



And her extraordinary illustrations for Alice in Wonderland.

This is her take on Gollum from The Hobbit, more like a startled woodland spirit than the slimy creature of my imagination.



For all that she wanted to be taken seriously as a painter, her paintings aren't terribly interesting - apart from a series of self-portraits.



On the way home I kept my eyes peeled for snowdrops - I still haven't seen my first snowdrop, possibly because I've barely been out in daylight. No luck - I'm desperate for a glimmer of spring - but I did pick a branch of catkins and they're now in a vase with a wonderfully garish bunch of tulips which makes me smile every time I look at them. First bunch of the year. There were sweet williams in Tesco but that just ain't right!