Last minute dash to Milton Keynes for the Vanessa Bell exhibition - where it struck me that as well as Virginia's £500 and a room of one's own, it helps to employ two nursemaids, one for each child ...

And a housemaid to sweep the room of one's own. I'm not a fully-committed Bloomsbury-ite so the people-watching opportunities in the gallery brought me great joy: so many artsy ladies in scarves and amusing hats and artsy old gents with Quentin Bell beards, and one wonderfully rotund old codger in hysterical pants. I did wonder what the future holds for Bloomsbury-worship when this generation of acolytes dies off.

I was intrigued by this electric(?)fire -

And by VW's revolutionary ideas about coffee and table settings: 'We were full of experiments and reforms. We were going to do without table napkins ... we were going to paint; to write; to have coffee after dinner instead of tea at nine o'clock. Everything was going to be new, everything was going to be different.' I hope the coffee didn't keep her up all night. I enjoyed the Famous Women Dinner Service with plates commemorating Queen Victoria and Jezebel, Jane Austen and Miss America 1933.

And I loved all the flowers ...