This was the painting - Hawksbill Bay, 2020 - that drew me to Tate Britain yesterday to catch the last day of the Hurvin Anderson exhibition. To think I nearly missed it: too hot, too cranky from being too hot, never heard of Hurvin Anderson ...it's not reproducing very well here, might be the unfortunate contrast with Mrs M's pink! Well, it was the heat-drenched colour that lured me - but the poster on the Tube, if I remember correctly, cut off the greys on one side. And this exhibition was about memory and belonging, and memory, of course, fades over time. One of the paintings that drew me back again and again was monochrome - unfortunately this is the only image I can find. The wet,concrete unwelcome of the Birmingham where Anderson grew up ... but those reflections shimmered. (I'll own up to feeling some personal nostalgia for puddles and damp; perhaps I should revisit this in November when I've had enough!) I watched part of the the film that was being shown - Handsworth Songs - but an hour-long film proved too much as an add-on to an exhibition when all the seats were taken and I was reflecting on cups of tea ... I'll catch up with it online.

Country Club:Chicken Wire (2008) is about racial and economic segregation, keep-out, them-and-us ... but that chicken wire! Each link different, and I swear it looked as if it might bounce ... what a painter!

So sad that's he gone. He was so joyously full of life and ideas that would have kept him busy had he lived to be 150. I'll own up to not having hugely enjoyed his Serpentine exhibition - heavens, it was thronged when I went, what will it be like now? - mostly because it was just one long Insta-opportunity for the tiresome posers whose only response to art or anything else is I Woz Here. But how I remember the sheer'wow' of walking into his 2012 exhibition at the Royal Academy and the exuberance of his Arrival of Spring as we emerged from lockdown. I visited the Serpentine on a glorious spring day and remember wondering how many more springtimes Hockney had left, and wishing him still a few more. I've just happened upon this rather sniffy comment in the Guardian: 'Nor can this artist escape his own vernal temperament, which infuses even shedding trees with that slightly chill impression of possibility that presages spring.' But how joyfully optimistic to have a vernal temperament and always to see the coming of another spring ...

Of all the paintings I saw yesterday when I was tootling around (one big exhibition, three little ones) this was the one I most wanted to take home with me. But who wouldn't love a Winifred Nicholson. (POA as the list is in my handbag and I can't be bothered rummaging.)

Long-listed for the Booker Prize. Short-listed as possibly the most tedious, banal, pretentious load of tripe I've ever had the misfortune to fall asleep over. (Book group. Goes without saying.) The Guardian reviewer - surprisingly - sums it up well. If only there could be a warning sticker on anything produced by graduates/teachers of creative writing programmes! I stand by what I said. But heavens, I must have been in a cranky mood when I wrote this!

I never imagined I could be so engrossed in a novel, translated from the Norwegian, about one small family scratching out a living on a tiny island where nothing much happens except weather. But the seasons pass and life happens and change follows and even on an island there are dreams and disappointments. It is beautifully written - in language as spare as the landscape - and beautifully translated by two co-translators. (I wonder how they managed that so seamlessly?) This is the first book of a quartet and I've already ordered the next one.

You wouldn't look at this and immediately think Lucian Freud, would you? And I can't say I've thought of pairing daffodils and celery, but don't they look fresh and springlike? It was the sparkling glass jug that initially caught my eye at the National Portrait Gallery and this was the painting that I paid a second visit to on my way out. I wanted a postcard but they'd already sold out, even though the exhibition only opened a couple of weeks ago - so I guess I'm not the only one drawn to it. Late Friday afternoon proved to be a lovely time to visit, no crowds and lots of room to stand and stare - and Freud always repays standing and staring. To my surprise, I ended up spending three hours there, barely time to grab coffee and cake in the crypt of St-Martin-in-the-Fields before meeting my friend for the theatre. Perhaps predictably, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry proved far too mawkish for either of us - and it came flooding back to me how much I hated the book - but the staging/design/lighting is quite brilliant, and whoever designed the dog deserves an award.

I've been promising myself a blast of Hockney colour for weeks now and it was actually a mild - dry! - sunny afternoon when I finally made it to his exhibition of 'some very, very, very new paintings' only days before it closes. People were having lunch sitting out in Hanover Square, not quite picnic weather but seizing the moment. Hydrangeas, delphiniums and roses and crumpled gingham tablecloths felt like a hit of Vitamin D and felt wonderfully cheering.

But upstairs in the gallery is the 'Moon Room' of iPad paintings made outside Hockney's studio in Normandy. It was only when I noticed a photo in the catalogue of 88-year-old Hockney, back to the camera, sitting outside on a kitchen chair to 'paint' the night sky that it really brought home to me his unceasing wonderment at everything around him, reflections, silhouetted trees, the moon's corona, clouds; they felt eternal and peaceful - and we surely need that.

Rose Wylie is even older than Hockney but I wasn't bowled over by her exhibition at the Royal Academy; slightly frustrating as everybody else seemed to think it was witty and fun - and I was just thinking, oh, for heaven's sake, give me a paintbox, even I could do that.

But she remembers a bomb landing on her family home during WW2 - which did catch my eye because I've just finished reading A Chelsea Concerto, Frances Faviell's memoir of her time as a Red Cross volunteer in Chelsea during the Blitz.

Now, to be honest, Faviell is not a brilliant writer and I don't feel inclined to go on to read any of her novels - the friends and neighbours about whom she writes are cardboard for the most part and don't spring to life on the page. And yet it's riveting, maybe because she writes about a tiny section of London from King's Road to Cheyne Walk and the river, streets I've walked so many times - and you realise how Chelsea was hammered, night after night, by bombers aiming for the power stations and the river bridges. A lull in the bombing brings women out to have their hair permed, because no-one fancies being hooked up to a waving machine during a raid. Faviell has to measure her hips - 34 inches, an inch to spare on either side - strip to her undies and wriggle into a hole beneath a collapsed house to bring chloroform to a screaming man. One of her jobs was reassembling dismembered body parts for burial. And all this within a few streets of home. Eventually Faviell's own home takes a direct hit. She feels a warm arm around her neck, thinks it's her husband - but it's the severed arm of her lovely friend from the flat upstairs, a young woman married only a few days previously and still on her honeymoon. It's a relentless, compelling read - and you do wonder how you would have measured up yourself; what amazing sangfroid and presence of mind and good humour people (mostly) showed. I can't imagine I'd have been much good for anything more than brewing tea with the WVS.

If only it would stop raining, I might have something to write about - but though I tell myself bracingly that I won't dissolve in the downpour, it really doesn't tempt me to venture out, even to sit damply in a cinema. Fortunately the year has kicked off with some very good reading and this gripping biography of George Orwell's invisible first wife Eileen - quite different from any other biography I've ever read - turned out to be an absolute page-turner and I devoured it in just a few days. I'd heard of Sonia Orwell (Blair?), the second wife who was the gatekeeper to Orwell's estate, but hadn't realised that she only married him literally on his deathbed. But Eileen - a shadowy figure never named in her husband's writing, and obliterated by his male biographers - was with Orwell through much of the Spanish Civil war, worked in a dangerous job at political HQ in Barcelona, saved the ms of Homage to Catalonia, probably saved Orwell's sorry life from Stalinist spies... and never gets a mention. Back home in England, she's the one who earned the money, did all the wifework in their freezing cold cottage, despite her debilitating gynae problems, unblocked the squalid, overflowing latrine, typed and edited his work, nursed him when he was sick (and he clearly didn't give a thought to coughing his tubercular guts up over anyone, not even their adopted baby) ... Now I admit I read Orwell at an impressionable age, but I'd always thought of him as one of the Socialist good guys. Turns out that he was a selfish, misogynistic, exploitative, creepy sex-pest and attempted rapist who didn't even try to hide his infidelities from Eileen, who was so self-effacing by the end that, while he gallivanted in Paris doing Important Men's Work, she died on an operating table, aged 39, possibly because the surgery was done on the cheap to save money. Her money! Anna Funder has done a brilliant forensic job piecing together scraps of evidence and giving Eileen a voice. I still feel such rage on her behalf that I'd spit on Orwell's grave. But at risk of victim-blaming, I'm raging at Eileen, too ... you just long for this highly-educated, vibrant woman tell him to f_ off.

And this is the most moving novel I've read in a long time. Although it's fictionalised, it's so rooted in the human tragedy of the Middle East that it feels like a documentary, following generations of a Palestinian family uprooted from their ancestral home in 1948 to face decades of atrocities in the Jenin refugee camp at the hands of the Israelis. I read it shortly after (belatedly) watching the heartbreaking Oscar-winning documentary film No Other Land, made by a young Palestinian-Israeli group of directors, about the brutal destruction of Palestinian homes on the West Bank.

I've been away for far too long to play catch-up. The Downton Abbey flower show at Kew Gardens was hilariously bonkers; that's the Dowager and Mrs Crawley taking tea (rather disappointing that one - but you should have seen Thomas the Footman imprisoned in vines and poisonous skullduggery). The Royal Ballet adaptation of Like Water for Chocolate was entrancing, even from from my cheap(ish) ticket up in the gods, especially as I hadn't been to the Royal Opera House since my lavish-spending days pre-retirement (sob). HMS Pinafore at the Coliseum seemed like a jolly festive idea but was far too carry-on and pantomime for me, and starred the ghastly Mel whatshername from Bakeoff; yes, my fault I didn't read the blurb properly, but at least there were some good tunes. And if that seems a lot of going-out, well I have been away for three months.

But at least I have one up-to-date recommendation because The Tale of Silyan only opened a few days ago. (We saw it at the ICA which, despite its swanky address on the Mall, is possibly the shabbiest venue in London once you get inside.)It is a Macedonian documentary - I know, that doesn't scream 'rush to buy a ticket' - about a struggling farmer, whose family has been forced to emigrate, who adopts a stork with a broken wing. The cinema was packed with that lovely feeling that the whole audience was riveted by the true story. The bonus was a Q&A session afterwards with the young filmmakers. It only seems to be on at a handful of cinemas but if you can catch it, it's well worth it.

Maybe I should rebrand myself as Mrs Miniver's Quarterly - but here I am back again wth the usual good intentions, spurred on by a nice comment from Pam who is kind enough to miss me. But tonight I can't claim I'm 'too busy' as I'm home alone on a Saturday night - and yes, there is still a bit of me that feels that's social disaster, even at my age! I suppose I could have made a bit more effort but dinner was half a bottle of red and a whole tub of Pringles (and I don't mean one of the mini tubs!). Lips are burning and yes, it serves me right. And then I watched Christmas in Connecticut - about a food writer who can't cook - to assuage my post-UPF regret. I'll have you know that I spent last weekend baking 17th century mince pies from a long-lost recipe; much faffing and guessing quantities and in all honesty, they weren't as nice as the pies I usually make.

I can't say I'm feeling Christmassy yet, though most of the presents have been bought - which is entirely out of character for me - and there have been several outings that brought a chance to admire the London lights. Possibly best seen from a bus as the crowds are something else this year, or maybe I'm just getting old. Best outing by far was the hilarious David Copperfield at the tiny Jermyn Street Theatre, performed by an energetic cast of three; sitting on the end of the front row, I was worried that Mr Murdstone might trip over my feet and land on my lap. I also went to a matinée of the RSC's Wendy and Peter Pan - bizarrely on a rare sunny day when it was warm enough to sit on the Barbican terrace without a coat. The set was amazing and the flying scenes were stunning but shrill feminist Wendy was totally charmless, jokes that made school parties laugh went over my head (oh lord, I've turned into my mother!) and it went on far too long for me and I nodded off. Anyway, it has ended now, long before Christmas and the school hols which seems odd.

Whilst I would dearly love to bid for Lady Mary's 'Criterion' gown - seafoam green silk with gold lace overlay - I am pained to admit that Mrs Patmore's pinny looked a trifle too small for me. (I also rather coveted her grocery list, not the starriest item in Bonhams' Downton Abbey auction ... but all that tinned salmon and pineapple, who knew - was it really worth all that dressing for dinner just for tinned pineapple?) I've had a fun afternoon admiring the Granthams' family car, a 1925 Sunbeam in 'generally fine running condition', current bid £38,000 - barely above estimate - Lady Edith's Brussels lace wedding dress - and the iconic servants' hall bells (estimate £5000-£7000, current bid an eye-watering £24,000, and you have to remind yourself that they're not 'real Downton history', they're only a prop!). Just as much fun eavesdropping on the throng of chattering lady fans and their encyclopaedic knowledge of who's who and who wore what in which series. I thought I could win Mastermind Downton - but these ladies were something else! Free tickets are sold out - but given the Tube strike, I reckon you could walk in without one. (And it's only two minutes walk from the Lizzy line which is still running.)

Three pounds of veal my darling girl prepares, And chops it nicely into little squares; Five onions next procures the little minx (The biggest are the best, her Samiwel thinks), And Epping butter nearly half a pound, And stews them in a pan until they’re brown’d. What’s next my dexterous little girl will do? She pops the meat into the savoury stew, With curry-powder table-spoonfuls three, And milk a pint (the richest that may be), And, when the dish has stewed for half an hour, A lemon’s ready juice she’ll o’er it pour. Then, bless her! Then she gives the luscious pot A very gentle boil – and serves quite hot. PS – Beef, mutton, rabbit, if you wish, Lobsters, or prawns, or any kind fish, Are fit to make a CURRY. ‘Tis, when done, A dish for Emperors to feed upon. William Makepeace Thackeray's Poem to Curry, 1846 - which sounds much tastier than the lacklustre Waitrose readymeal I've just had for dinner. (Blogger still baulking at paragraphs! Why?????)

I'm back! Well, what can I say - usual excuses, promises to do better - but the longer one leaves something, the harder it is to jump back in. However, May has been a colourful month here - or is it just the glorious sunshine? I've enjoyed a little exhibition of works by Jean-Marie Toulgouat, who was Monet's step-great-grandson. I spent a day with him once - he was a lovely man - and it felt like fleetingly touching art history.

By nature, I'm more of a dour, rain-washed Celt - so that sensation of swimming in joyful colour is quite irresistible. I also enjoyed this recent exhibition of works by the inspirational Josephine Trotter who is 85 but feels she is only half-way through her career; most days I feel on the scrapheap of mine, but that's being dour and rain-washed!

Last weekend I had a day out in Brighton where I sat on a bench on the pier, breathed in the chip fumes, dithered over ice-cream flavours and chose lavender - and happened on a second helping of fish and chips in an artist's studio.

Of course, I had to spend a few hours in Brighton Pavilion, though it seemed wicked on such a sunny day - because I can't resist a grand historic kitchen, especially one fitted with palm trees. All the more so because I've been watching the ridiculous, but entertaining series Carême - which takes me ages, as I have to freeze-frame every vol-au-vent and lavish dessert.

In fact, it's been a kitchen-y week as well as a colourful week - because I've also been to Kew Gardens, ostensibly to admire the rhododendrons, but my favourite part isn't botanical, it's the Kew Palace kitchens. Sadly, my interest in kitchens fizzles out when it comes to my own housework rather than history.

Anybody else watching the classic TV series A Family at War on TPTV? I'm really enjoying it - only slightly frustrated by the old-style drip feed of one episode a week, as nowadays I'm a fervent binge-watcher. It originally aired from 1970-72 which is even longer ago than I recall; in fact, I don't remember watching it back then as I wasn't much of a television-viewer in my teens - I'd have been hogging the 'front room', ostensibly doing my homework but actually immersed in my stash of Jackie magazines and obsessing about my split ends. (Whatever happened to split ends? Does anybody have them any more? How many gallons of Protein 21 shampoo did it take before I grasped that advertisers saw me coming?) However, somebody must have been watching - because that Vaughan Williams theme music and the opening titles with the sandcastle waft me right back ... get a grip, I'm not really nostalgic for O-levels revision! High-class television, though, great writing and a great cast - and doesn't the young Barbara Flynn, as Freda Ashton, look so pretty?

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 ...

Well, bear with me while I get back in my stride - but I will say that this Iranian film is simply gripping and had me on the edge of my seat last night. (Word of warning, it's VERY long!) 5* from me, although it does strain credibility towards the end - but I was so engrossed that didn't bother me at the time.

Is there anybody there? Well, a couple of people were kind enough to say they missed me. And it's only taken me five months to work out how to load pictures again. (I wasn't on the case 24/7 but I did sporadically try, honest!) Anyway, an anonymous query last night asking if I'd retired from blogging prompted me to google - and this time I came up with an answer that worked! So here's a picture to celebrate the spring that hasn't yet sprung around here - but I'm enjoying the daffs that were 19p a bunch in Waitrose this afternoon. Normal service could well be resumed soon - although I'm not sure you've missed out on much as the blog hiatus has coincided with a long lethargic spell here. (Weather, more weather, house sale that was sensible but nevertheless sad, and penny dropping that having long believed I was completely devoid of any work ethic, even so I'm bizarrely unsuited to retirement.) And yes, I missed all of you, too!

Saddened to hear of the death of the sublime Dame Maggie and so glad that I got to see her last stage performance five years ago.

I don't know how my local cinema stays open because there was only me and one other person there this afternoon - for this lovely film that was sad and funny. And definitely aimed at my generation as I'm all too obviously there for the silver screen discount and the free coffee (delivered to my seat by a nice Generation Z-er who didn't want me to miss the start of the film). It has been quite a cinematic week as I also saw Prima Facie with an astonishing performance by Jodie Comer; first time I'd seen a NT Live production - apart from a few at home during lockdown - as if you live in London it's just as easy, and often cheaper, to go to the theatre. I didn't think I'd be as engaged watching a screen - but I was mesmerised.

Well, I'm still here, still picture-less despite much fiddling - and heaven knows why I chose tonight for a comeback as, honestly, this weekend has been jinxed. Last night I had tickets for this play at Hampstead - no reviews yet, but it sounded promising - but alas, the performance was cancelled; and today I was planning to visit these wonderful artists' studios, only to find a notice pinned to the door: exhibition cancelled. So what else has been happening? I doubt anyone reading this will be hankering to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice ... But just in case you're tempted, let me tell you that I crept out bored to tears and thoroughly confused after giving it 40 minutes, which was 40 minutes too long. On the other hand, though I'm probably not the demographic for an Irish-language rap movie, Kneecap was absolutely hilarious - though you need your wits about you to keep up with Irish rappers'sub-titles. I didn't realise it was based on a real-life rap group until the end; but give me a break, I was the oldest person in the cinema by decades. On a more decorous note, this adaptation of Pride and Prejudice by a cast of three was sheer delight and so inventive that I'm sure Jane Austen would have been in ladylike fits of giggles. However, this time I felt like I'd gatecrashed a Saga holiday outing - and I was the youngest person there by, perhaps not decades, but a good few years thank you very much. Well, it makes a change! I also hugely enjoyed this play at the National about a group of gay black American men competing in a hot chicken wing contest. (Oh, the smell of that sizzling chicken! I was rather hoping they'd pass some round the audience.) The Grapes of Wrath was impressive but not as moving as the book. And I caught an amazing performance by the understudy playing Michael in the Death of England trilogy; I'd already seen the third part when it was at the National last year. The evenings do seem to be drawing in so I was thrilled to see the return of Slow Horses, which is quite as good and possibly even better than anything by John le Carré; just be glad that you can't smell flatulent Gary Oldman/Jackson Lamb through the screen. (Which reminds me that I've only read two of the books; must get cracking with the rest.) But to end on that more decorous note, most evenings this week I've been immersed in Mrs Gaskell on BBC Sounds: Sylvia's Lovers, which I'd never read, and an excellent adaptation of North and South - only Cranford seemed a bit stodgy, maybe just impossible to stand up to that wonderful TV series ... can it really be 17 years ago? Feels like yesterday.