How do dolls know when it is autumn? The same way that you do. They smell the London autumn smells of bonfires, of newly lit chimneys, of fog and leaves soaking in the wet. When they go out they see that Michaelmas daisies are out in the Park and chrysanthemums are in the flower shops and violets have come back on the street flower-sellers' trays.

From The Dolls' House, by Rumer Godden.

If only it really were about Michaelmas daisies and chrysanthemums (I haven't seen bunches of violets for years) but on my way home this afternoon the reality was torrential rain and streetlights coming on at 4pm.

I'd been to see this film which I'd missed when it first came out and which now counts as a classic. How can it be 40 years ago?

All the years that have passed have not dimmed my memory of that first glorious autumn. The new country lay open before me: there were no fences in those days ... Sometimes I followed the sunflower-bordered roads. Fuchs told me that the sunflowers were introduced into that country by the Mormons ... the members of the first exploring party, crossing the plains to Utah, scattered sunflower seed as they went. The next summer, when the long trains of wagons came through with all the women and children, they had the sunflower trail to follow ... that legend has stuck in my mind, and sunflower-bordered roads always seem to me the roads to freedom.'

From My Ántonia by Willa Cather.

I've seen fields of sunflowers but never a sunflower trail. Doesn't it sound gorgeous? By one of those strange literary coincidences, this story - which I'd never come across before - cropped up twice in my reading this week. So I decided to share it.

Much as I love Willa Cather, I'd never read My Ántonia, which is probably the best-known of her novels. It goes without saying that it was wonderful ... she leaves you feeling almost homesick for places you have never seen.

I can't knit -

or crochet -

but I don't think I'll be able to resist this exhibition at the Rebecca Hossack gallery, especially as I'll be just around the corner one day next week.

Aren't they fun?

I might have guessed that Homepride Fred was

a male knitter.

The website is worth a visit as there's lots more.

When I came across this book in the children's library last week, I was convinced that it was a much-loved but long-forgotten story that I'd read many years ago.

But as I read it, something seemed wrong ... yes, there was a wonderful dolls' house, a Dutch doll, a tumbling boy doll, made out of plush, an imperious posh doll.

But they weren't quite how I remembered them. And surely I wouldn't have so completely forgotten that menacing ending when the malevolent posh doll exerts her will and simple-minded, celluloid Birdie goes up in flames.

And then last night - from the deep recesses of memory where books about dolls' houses get filed - something struggled to the surface. The book that I'd loved was Five Dolls in a House by Helen Clare ... about a little girl who shrinks to visit her dolls: bossy, old-fashioned Vanessa, gentle Jane whose leather feet reminded me of a Dutch doll, Lupin who only wore a vest, their French paying-guest and a monkey who shouted rude words down the chimney.

And now, of course, I'm desperate to read it again - and it isn't in the library.

I haven't seen a copy for years but I remember loving the characters and all their dolls' house furniture. Is it still around today?

Another book that I'd love to read again is Marigold in Godmother's House, by the the author of Milly-Molly-Mandy, which I remember as absolutely entrancing.

I couldn't walk past an art gallery without 'paying a visit.' Maybe it's a hangover from childhood when nobody ever walked past a church without dropping in.

When I stopped by the National Gallery a few days ago, it wasn't with any specific intention of seeing this exhibition. But when I wandered through, I found myself in a bubble of peace and calm on what was rather a scratchy and bad-tempered day. Even the security guard told me how uplifting he found it to sit there all day ...

And needless to say, even though it's free to get in, there were hardly any visitors because 500 year-old Italian altarpieces don't attract crowds.

I'm ashamed to think how often I've scooted past them with barely a glance. It's the domestic, human details that move me most ... a servant with a towel flung over her shoulder boiling water for a baby's birth, or testing the temperature of bathwater with her hand; a pair of shoes kicked off before an altar; the harassed and worried look on a priest's face as he supervises the exhumation of a saint; a strand of hair combed over a bald head. It was like being in a dark, Italian church, hearing a distant chanting of monks (I never thought I'd approve of background music in an art gallery but this time it works) and I sat there until closing time when I was the last one there and they had to throw me out.

It was such a chilly holiday weekend that fish and chips on the beach turned into fish and chips in a bus shelter with a sea view.

And then I visited the local museum to get out of the wind.

I'm not very keen on these papier-mâché creatures by Julie Arkell... too whimsical and fey for me. (Okay, I admit, I'm the one gasping, "£60 for a papier mâché toadstool!"

Why would you even want a papier mâché toadstool?)

But they are part of a little exhibition of local people's favourite toys ... and I was rather more charmed by a display of battered old teddy bears, kissed half to death, and dolls' houses made by clever dads. That reminded me of a bungalow made by my clever grand-dad for Christmas, 1960. I wonder whatever happened to it.

Doesn't this simply zing with colour? When I pulled this card from its envelope this morning I was completely bowled over ...

And to think the real thing covers 15 canvases. (That's nine feet tall x 20 feet wide, if I've converted the cms correctly.)

What clever timing ... a big David Hockney exhibition is due to open in the dankest, horriblest part of the year, right at the end of January, when if it's anything like last year, this blaze of glorious colour will be exactly what I need to raise my spirits. The painting is Winter Timber, 2009. Nice to have something to look forward to.