It is far too long since I have had a Proper Treat. New shoes? New handbag? New coat? Oh dear, I really need a new coat but I was born without the female shopping gene.

They say women turn into their mothers as they get older.

But I have turned into my dad. And I hate, hate, hate shopping. (Unless it's for food. I like food shopping. This is not entirely unrelated to the fact that shopping for clothes is a torment.)

No, what I really like is a Grand Day Out. On my own.

I know this is unsociable. But Grand Days Out do not allow for compromise. (You will only get tired and moan and keep phoning your children to see if the house is on fire ...)

And what I want to do is visit this exhibition. And spend hours and hours there if I want to.

I've read the catalogue. I've sighed about the fact that it's not coming to London. I saw Cornflower's pictures and was stricken with a nasty attack of blogger's envy.

And then this morning I read this and it tipped me over the edge.

So I got on the phone and talked to a person in Calcutta or thereabouts and discovered I could buy a day return flight to Edinburgh for £50.

And that is why I'm in a happy, sunshiney mood today. For the price of a pair of shoes!

I'm looking forward to a Grand Day Out.

I only nipped out to go to the bank but to get there I have to pass the Oxfam bookshop.

For every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing.

But what am I even thinking of, going inside? (Especially when the bank will be closed in 10 minutes.)

Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a moveable body.

Of course, you'll understand why it's important - even though I'm drastically cutting back and there's heaps of unread books all over the house - but I simply have to check in case there's a rare and wonderful bargain.

The trouble with resisting temptation is that it may not come your way again.

I'm in the door ...

I deal with temptation by yielding to it.

I see the dovegrey cover. Even though I already own a copy of Miss Pettigrew (and have given several others to friends) I pick it up, anyway. It is pristine. It still has its Persephone bookmark. And, wait for it ...

It is signed, in slightly shaky, old lady's handwriting by Winifred Watson herself.

There is a tussle with my conscience. It is only £1.69. But people whose bookshelves are double-parked do not need duplicates.

I put it back on the shelf. I hope that it will go to a good and loving home.

Of course, the Oxfam shop opens again at 9am tomorrow.

Those who flee temptation generally leave a forwarding address.

'He is like a butterfly, but at the same time he is the epitome of manliness and youthful beauty. The ballerinas, who are just as beautiful, are completely eclipsed by him.'

'When he danced Spectre he was the very perfume of the rose because in everything he extracted the essence.'

Oh, oh, oh ... what can I say about the V&A's Ballets Russes exhibition except that I spent three hours there this afternoon, absolutely entranced. If only I could take a day trip back in time and see a performance. Would I pick the beautiful Nijinsky in Le Spectre de la Rose? (And he was beautiful, like a faun, I hadn't realised quite how lovely he was until I saw the sculpture of his head.) Or Tamara Karsavina dancing Firebird? (Though I chuckled at the cartoon of Mr Punch's spoof ballet Les Suffragistes starring M. Asquithoff and the Corps de Ballot.)

It was easy to see how Diaghilev set the world aflame with his Ballets Russes. What an explosion of colour and music and art. I saw costumes by Bakst and the biggest Picasso in the world and Lydia Lopokova dancing in a frothy little can-can number designed by Derain.

And there is even something for the knitters ... two wonderful woolly swimsuits designed by Chanel for the ballet Le Train Bleu. (For dancing, or posing but not, I think, for getting wet.)

You need at least three hours to see this spectacular exhibition; I hadn't realised how big it was, so I'll be going back for another look.

The whirlpool and the gulf were the quintessence of the wildness of Jura, and just the kind of thing Orwell's police state in Nineteen Eighty-Four had abolished, because they knew such wilderness nourished freedom of thought and action ... Whirlpools and wild places are inextricably linked with our capacity for creativity, as Orwell demonstrated when he chose to come to Jura to write his last novel. From Waterlog, by Roger Deakin.

I am a paddler in the shallows, not a person who swims in whirlpools. But I like it that there are others who do.

I'm with them in spirit. Just not so keen on getting wet.

On an autumn afternoon, this was such a perfect film, poignant and funny, and as soon as it finished I wanted to see it all over again. The Illusionist is a vaudeville magician on his uppers, who meets Alice, a young girl who is convinced that his magic is real. (It's based on a previously unfilmed screenplay by Jacques Tati.)

I loved the old-fashioned animation evoking rain-drenched London and soot-blackened Edinburgh in the late 1950s; a world of third-class British Rail carriages and dingy theatrical digs. I giggled at the Scottish fish and chip shop with ideas above its station; I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when the magician thinks he has eaten his nasty-tempered rabbit in a stew. And I felt really sad that the cinema was almost empty because I thought this gentle, nostalgic film was a work of art.

Things I've enjoyed this weekend ...

Nigel's plum crisp (scroll to the end for recipe) which won hands down over his plum cake.

Watching Gigi on television. My mum took me to see it at the cinema when I was five or six. She knew that the unsuitable bits would sail right over my head.

Lamb baked with aubergines and tomatoes for dinner.

Picking Michaelmas daisies along the river.

Giving in and turning on the heating.

I hardly notice the deer, or the squirrels or the mushrooms that might not be poisonous. I'm thrashing through bracken, and hopping over rabbitholes. (Or are they molehills? I'm such a townie.) I'm late, I'm late, I'm late.

It is London's Open House weekend and I've decided to explore close to home. I have every confidence that I can scurry across Richmond Park in time to tour the Royal Ballet School before it closes. When I arrive puffing and panting the stern lady on the door is not at all sympathetic. I am Too Late. I can tell that she is accustomed to dealing with those who are disciplined enough to get up on time. After all, the swans can't hop along 40 minutes late to dance Swan Lake.

But the museum is still open so I get to read Darcey Bussell's school report. Her teacher says that Darcey works too hard.

Not something that was ever said about me. (Although I recall one teacher saying that I was destined to succeed Late in Life.)

So off I thrash again, through woods and bracken. And emerge - fancy that - at exactly the right gate to have cake at Petersham Nurseries.

If I'm ever going to achieve a Darcey Bussell waistline, it'll have to be later.