Swimming reindeer, Kingdom of Ife and lady detectives.

1. The entrance of the British Museum is Saturday crowded -- too many people, too many voices, too much to take in. We dive into a darkened side room to collect ourselves and find the swimming reindeer sculpture -- 13,000 years old. There's no rush.

2. We go to the British Museum for an exhibition of sculptures from Ife (a kingdom in what is now Nigeria). Looking at some of the bronze heads, cast between 12th and 15th century, I can see real people staring proudly back at me. Many of the sculptures were lost in times of unrest and then found again and honoured in sacred groves. Among the life-like heads, a granite mudfish stands out for me -- a roughly shaped finger of rock with rusted nail eyes and nostrils. And two terracotta rams heads -- I can see them alive in my, fine fellows standing out from the sharp-scented flock, their heads drawn back, and their lips curled to show their teeth.

3. Waiting at the station, I spot a book that Tim recommended to me some time ago -- two eccentric lady detectives solve mysteries in the gothic seaside town of Whitby. Never the Bride by Paul Magrs involves aliens-on-the-run, a devilish beauty salon and a hotel where eternal Christmas Eve is presided over by a terrifying vision of enforced jollity who calls herself Mrs Claus -- plus a fish and chip shop called Cod Almighty. I've finished it by bedtime.

Now, variety and off to the theatre.

1. I like to meet artists who talk about how important it is to live now.

2. I interview Debbie Reynolds about the variety show she is bringing to Tunbridge Wells Assembly Hall on April 10, and she talks about what a blessing it is to be a mother: "My daughter is Princess Leia, Carrie Fisher..."

3. We eat our supper quickly, and hurry out to the theatre. It's Blood Brothers -- Willie Russell's musical tragedy. The first half is a bit of a love letter to a deprived Liverpool childhood.

PS: Here's a short Debbie Reynolds playlist for anyone who does Spotify!

Treasure, education and supper.

1. The sun in shining, but shards and motes of snow have set the air glittering.

2. At The School of Life, they have a mural by Charlotte Mann in the classroom. It is done with black marker, and depicts a busy, cluttered room, with wide open windows. It feels as if some people have just stepped out for a moment, leaving their Scrabble half finished. Teacher Mark Vernon explains that it's to make you feel as if you aren't in a basement, and to maybe help you think a bit differently.

3. At supper they have a sort of fruit in slices. It looks like a pear, but it isn't. It turns out to have been soaked in vodka, and it is delicious. Later I pick up a thumb sized piece of chocolate cake -- it is both salty and sweet and fills my mouth in a very sticky, satisfying way.

Tiny diaries, art workshop and layers.

1. I don't know if you spotted the comment on Monday's post from the charming Elspeth Thompson who lives in an eco railway carriage by the sea. She mentioned 3BT in the journaling section of The Wonderful Weekend Book. As a result, one of her readers, Mousey Brown, took up the practice on paper (candy-coloured journals from Moleskine to be exact). In this post, Mousey Brown talks about her tiny diaries.

2. I am doing an interview at Trinity when people who have just finished an art workshop come out of the gallery. They are all carrying bright drawings on chickens done on black paper. My interview subjects scatter to admire the work: "That one's really strutting, isn't he." One of the artists crows like a rooster.

3. I finish for the day at 7.30pm. A bite of supper then a shower. After that, we pack ourselves into bed -- bundled in layers of pyjamas and with a hotwater bottle pushed between the cold sheets.

Hockney, birds and sewing on buttons.

1. At the art gallery here in Tunbridge Wells, we are lucky enough to have an exhibition of David Hockney's Brother's Grimm prints. We go together and enjoy Hockney's wonderful imagination (Rumplestilchen tears himself in half, quarters and then into tiny pieces), his skill at the medium (I enjoyed the contrast between the heap of straw and heap of gold) and his acute observation (loved the enchantress' hairy chin).

2. We view a house, and I spot a guide to British birds in the sitting room, and an improvised birdtable on the hedge.

3. I have finally got round to securing the buttons on my coat -- they've been dangling on long (but well secured) threads for weeks, and looking really untidy. We put a radio play on (a Big Finish Doctor Who) and before I know it, the job is done.

Touching, happy dinosaur and a class.

1. I discover this wonderful thing here in Tunbridge Wells -- Art at Your Fingertips -- a library of tactile pictures for people with a visual impairment. Each picture comes with audio to help the user understand what is under their fingertips.


2. Overheard: a woman talking to her colleagues about a phone call to her little boy. "He said: 'Just a minute, I have to go and do the stompy happy dinosaur dance.'"

3. I hurry across London in the gathering dusk for a class at the School of Life -- How to Survive Your Family. I like the idea of people gathered in the same room for one purpose.

Glazed, in this edition and revision.

1. We pick up our creations from my hen do. The glaze has deepened all the colours. Pastels have become jewel shades.

2. The mother drops a free paper down on the table. "They gave me this. I've been carrying it around all morning. Do you want it?" It's the edition with my first arts feature in. We jump around the kitchen.

3. While Nick is having his stag do, I revise for tomorrow's assessment. I'm glad I scribbled all the medical definitions in my course book.

Greenwood, owl and someone else did it.

1. On the common, the smell of cut green wood where workmen are clearing the banks. It's a like a carpentry workshop, and a like a cold day.

2. There is so much to love about the Warner Brothers' short I Love to Singa -- the story of a little owl who dared to sing jazz against the wishes of his classically-trained parents. The mother owl's distress always puts a little lump in my throat, and then the cartoon hits me in the face with the 'No we didn't, lady" gag. If you've got eight minutes, give it a viewing.



3. Nick normally hauls the bins up to the road once a fortnight and grumbles about how he always has to do it. At 5pm, I hear the old rrrrollll-scrape of the recycling bins trundling up the drive, and think for a moment that Nick has come home early. He hasn't -- but when he does get in, he's very pleased at not having to do a chore he dislikes.

Wordcount, matinee and hidden voices.

1. I like checking my wordcount and seeing that I've passed the day's limit without realising.

2. It's a beautiful day, but we're going to a matinee at Trinity. It's Coco Avant Chanel with lovely, lovely Audrey Tatou. Part ingenue, part ruthless user, she tailors her way to fame and fortune, persauding rich men to give her the leg-up she needs in order to change the clothing world forever.

2. While we wait to go in to the film, we look at the exhibition, titled Hidden Voices. It's a set of photographs and interviews with the town's homeless people. The stories are sad: it's so easy to slip out of a way of life that I take for granted. Not being very good at maths so you can't budget. Being gay. Having a boyfriend that your parents hate. Being bullied by your housemates. Not getting on with your stepdad. Being offered a flat, but discovering that it's so far from your work, friends and family that it's unusable. But the stories are full of hope, too: reconciliations, escapes, births, new jobs, training courses and drying out.

Garden, the promises and people in the picture.

1. I like to come into the gardens of the Tuileries Palace from the Place de Concorde. We went from bright white pavement, to bright white sand to an idealised forest. Arrow-straight rows of chestnut trees shade pocket handkerchief lawns on which stylised bronze sculptures desport. Runners crunched past us, shifted into their own world by the rhythm of their steps.

2a. Before the wedding, in the carpark catching sight of a familiar dark-haired figure re-arranging an unfamilar white dress.

2. Sarah reads her vows in French, and Matthieu reads his in English -- what a wonderful way to affirm the cultural duality of their marriage.

2b. I like to see the groom looking at the bride and smiling to himself.

3. A charismatic preacher talks about the beauty of The Song of Songs. Its central theme is romantic love, so I am surprised to learn that it's not very often used in marriage ceremonies.

4. The bride and groom come round to our table and Sarah tells us that we're the only bilingual table. We'd been getting on all right -- questions and translations washed round and round and faces lit up as jokes arrived their destinations.

5. A long time ago, Katie painted a picture of me, her and Sarah. It seems Sarah still has it on display -- "Ah, you are in le tableau... the picture?".

5. The bride's father gave a speech in French -- first explaining that he hadn't spoken it for 50 years.

Unsung heroine, tea and in front of the telly.

1. At an exhibition about the Bloomsbury Group's Omega Workshop, the Courtauld Gallery displays some prints by Winifred Gill. I'm charmed and smitten. I feel like Alice when she swallows the contents of the drink-me bottle: the small images remind me all at once of several things I like: Samuel Palmer's black and white landscapes, scherenschnitte and book illustrations. One of them makes me feel as if I am peeping into someone's office through a crack in the door. This linocut on paper called Olives. It's in the exhibition, on loan from Dr Margaret Bennett.

2. We take tea at the Courtauld Gallery and have both scones and cake -- which amuses the manager very much, because both are enormous. My cake makes me hiccup lavender for the rest of the day. The scones are large and freshly crusty, full of caramelised raisins; and they send out a whole jar of strawberry jam.

3. Just once in a while, to have supper on a tray in front of the television.

Funds, storm and ribbons.

1. I get the news that I've got the funding for an audio typing course, which I'm hoping will open some (paying) work doors for me.

2. I like to see a rainstorm coming in over the Medway valley. Long grey streaks have been combed out of the high clouds.

3. I try ribbon embroidery for the first time. Di Van Niekerk's book is insistant that even imperfect stitches are fine because you can work over them to add texture.

Eye-candy, sky tide and sleepy.

1. "So much eye-candy for the girls," says a spectator at the homecoming parade of our local troops, First Battalion The Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment.

2. We go to the very top of the Tate Modern and eat supper looking out across London as the night washes in.

3. I like to read last thing at night, and to feel my head getting heavy.

Bus stop, salad leaves and last class.

1. At the top of the stairs, Anna has a whole wall of her children's drawings. I love the bright red corregated cardboard bus.

2. Putting homegrown salad leaves on the supper table.

3. Michael brings strawberries and cakes to our last art class. I'm going to miss my Thursday night drawing. I really didn't think I could draw when I started; and now I can, so that's a result.

Stay green, in the shade and sweets.

I've woken up my old blog Once Around the Park. 30-word accounts of a daily walk along the same route.

1. I like this time of year, when it is hot, but still green.

2. I am always afraid to put the shading into my pictures -- it's hard with portraits because the directional shading I'm so fond of looks like wrinkles, or sunburn. But when the teacher warns us that profile pictures can end up looking flat, I take a deep breath and give it a go. At the end of the class, he praises the depth of our portraits.

3. Sharing a box of mithai with Nick -- we're lucky enough to have a brilliant exotic supermarket in Tunbridge Wells (The Spice Store on Grosvenor Road), and a bite or two of an Indian sweet make a good change to our usual Jaffacakes.

Trainees, open eye and last of the light.

1. Two guide dog puppies (long legs and big paws) in the shopping centre. The yellow one watches the tip of a furled umbrella carried by a woman walking past. He tries so hard to leave it, but at last can't resist having a chew. The black dog fails by stretching up to grab a shopping bag.

2. We are doing self-portraits in art. I liked drawing a practice eye and suddenly finding that it was looking at me.

3. Nick is not amused when I call him away from his baseball to walk back up the hill and look at the sunset. 'I've been walking down this road for 20 years. I know about the sunsets.' But this one is particularly good -- the edges of the clouds shine as if they have been heated to white hot.

Cavalry, Alice and toffee.

1. Anna emails a soup recipe she says will help a cold; and Fenella offers to drop in some supplies if we need them.

2. Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland has spent a lot of time lying heavy in my lap in the last 24 hours. It's a lavish and ambitious comic that guides the reader round a fascinating part of England by way of a variety performance of illustration, photographs and collages.

3. I discover that chewing treacle toffee helps earache.

Two years, wildlife and inside the barrel.

1. Nick wakes me up and to tell me I'm his two-year girl. It's hard to believe that it's the second anniversary of our meeting at Tim and Rachel's wedding -- sometimes it seems as if we've been together since always; other times it seems we are walking into new territory.

2. A church round the corner has an embroidery exhibition. To give me a change from the flat's four walls, we go and have a look. My favourite was a pair of blue egg-shaped panels covered in lacy white images of magnified planckton and algae.

3. BBC2's South Pacific documentary included footage filmed inside a 12ft high breaking wave that left me with my mouth hanging open.

Leaves, lines and un-colour.

1. In a tray on the ledge outside our bedroom window, lettuce seeds push a crowd of green leaves out of the compost.

2. Using line shading to give shape to a drawing of a rusty key.

3. It's satisfying take off nail polish by dipping each finger into a sponge soaked in acetone.

Chiaoscuro, drapery and utopia

1. I like the mixture of sun and shade in the gardens along the Embankment.

2. We go to see the Van Dyck exhbition at Tate Britain. I love to see how artists express vibrant coloured silk. Another thing I like about these portraits is the way they engage with the viewer -- there were a lot of eyes following us around the gallery.

3. I come to the end of Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed, which I have been enjoying very much. I like utopian science fiction -- particularly if the utopia is put under the microscope. This one is about a physicist trying to work on an idea that his anarchist society need.