It was 1am before I headed stickily to bed having - as ever - started the whole project far too late in the day. The scent of quinces and rosewater wafted from the kitchen last night, spreading into
every room and I'm beginning to understand Sue's passion for quinces.

I only had half a dozen, rather small ones ... but now I have more than 70 little quince sweetmeats, to be sugared and layered in a tin as soon as I get tired of them cluttering my worktops! (Best hide them soon as I have a little nibble every time I put the kettle on.) They are loosely inspired by two historic recipes - 17th and 18th century - a dollop of Jane Grigson for common sense - and once you've achieved a gloopy, red mess, then wing it and hope for the best.  
I wish I could have tied them into lover's knots (any advice, Sue?) but they were too floppy and sticky so what I ended up with is the 17th century Rowntree's fruit pastille.

I'd love to display them in a little sugar basket. I might have a bash at something less ambitious tomorrow.

Now dusted with sugar and cinnamon and stashed away out of temptation and, though I say so myself, my quince sweeties are delicious. (Actually, everybody who's had a taste has been enthusiastic.) Now, if only I had some more quinces ...
Maybe I should to move to a house with a quince tree.

Turner on Varnishing Day, William Parrott

Timothy Spall gives a terrific performance as Mr Turner and it all looks simply wonderful, as you'd expect, but, oh dear, what a very long film - I could have done with 30 minutes less - and I'm afraid I nodded off for a few minutes during dinner with the Ruskins.
Can't remember the last time, though, that I went to the cinema and it was completely sold out.

Okay, so I'm the last person in the world to catch on - but Serial is completely addictive and far more compelling than anything currently on television.

I'm fascinated by this innovative style of campaigning investigative journalism ...  Apparently,  there are 850,000 podcast downloads of Serial each week which means it is doing better than most national newspapers with their plummeting circulations. (I have an old-fashioned fondness for print so this makes me sad - but I've stopped them buying them, too.)

Serial, in case you don't know, is a re-investigation of a real-life crime story from 1999. These are real people - real witnesses - real interviews. Someone is really in prison, rightly or wrongly.  There may or may not be a real killer still at large.

It is gripping. It is brilliantly well-crafted. And yet it makes me uncomfortable.

It's door-stepping by the mob. Re-trial by podcast.

I'm not sure about the ethics but I confess I'm hooked.

I was drawn to the lovely covers of this crime classics series and intended this for holiday reading when I was up in the Lake District a few weeks ago.
I've only just got around to it now but, to be honest, it hinges on rather too much detail about rural petrol deliveries - and I'm getting bored!

After a couple of bad reading choices in quick succession (The Shock of the Fall was almost unanimously disliked by the book group, only one of us having a good word to say for it, so it wasn't just me!) ... what a relief then to spend the weekend with my head down in a new Ian McEwan. The literary equivalent of sleeping on a good firm mattress instead of a cheap foam-filled futon. (Mattresses have been preying on my mind this week after a perfect night's sleep in a hotel bed that came from here. As mine needs replacing, I am sorely tempted.)

I haven't always been a fan of McEwan. Loved Atonement, loathed Saturday, wasn't entirely convinced by On Chesil Beach. But I do like his spare, elegant writing.

This is a compelling slim volume, only 213pp. Fiona is a High Court judge in the Family Division, fiercely intelligent, going through a midlife crisis in her own long, on the whole loving, but childless marriage. (Does seven weeks and a day without sex constitute a crisis worth leaving home for? Her husband thinks it does.)

To be honest, I didn't much care about Fiona's private life and whether or not she picked up the threads of her marriage with the history professor husband who was so vain of his silver-grey chest hair. But her working life is fascinating: the judgement she gave on Siamese twins - her ruling on educating the daughters of two divorced Orthodox Jews ... She is cool, dispassionate, a female Solomon. She wears Rive Gauche; a detail dropped in towards the end, but how exactly right for her.

And then she is called on to make an emergency court order in the case of a young Jehovah's Witness with leukaemia; almost 18 - but not quite - he is refusing a blood transfusion.

Often, when I finish reading McEwan I find myself stricken by doubts. Now that I've surfaced, I'm not entirely convinced by this beautiful, precocious, exceptionally-gifted 17-year-old poet. But I was completely engrossed while I was reading, right to the last page.

Persephone Books recently listed this as one of the 50 books they wish they'd published themselves, which is why I picked it up at the library despite the unpromising cover. They even said it should be on the Booker longlist.

Perhaps I should have trusted my instincts about the cover. It's chick-lit with pretensions. Topping my 2014 list of books I wish I hadn't wasted time on.

Unfortunately, it was the only book I'd shoved in my handbag when I was away on a work trip earlier this week. Although I suppose the advantage of not giving two hoots about silly plot or characters is that you can pick it up and put it down again without caring a jot when you're interrupted.

October 31 and London was bathed in sunshine this afternoon. Children were stripped down to nappies and pants, splashing in the fountains and jumping over the water spouts. I ate a late lunch sitting outside, wishing I hadn't put on warm autumny clothes this morning.Then a golden twilight fell very suddenly in the park and I set off for home.

 

I'd finished work early, was near Trafalgar Square anyway and, torn between what I ought to be doing (choosing a new cooker in John Lewis) and what I wanted to do, I naturally found myself in the National Gallery at the Rembrandt exhibition. But it was heaving with people and there wasn't a moment of stillness to contemplate one magnificent painting after another. I didn't want to jostle in front of the tenderness of Isaac and Rebecca, the Jewish Bride ...

I was transfixed by Catrina Hoogshaet's incredibly painful looking gold hairpins. See how they pinch her flesh?

And despite the crowds, this Apostle Bartholomew drew me across the room. He has such a timeless quality. Painted in 1661, but something in the craggy weariness of his face seems very modern.

This is a staggeringly good exhibition but I left in frustration at the blockbuster experience after an hour. I'll try again, maybe earlier in the week, or earlier in the morning.