The Thames has been flooding over the banks at high tide and so our walk turned out to be muddy as well as cold to the bone. Muffled up with scarves, gloves and hats and a big padded winter coat, so constituting a formidable defence against winter's icy grip... Even so, sometimes I feel my brain gets too cold to think and I might as well be a snowman.

We took the turn at the Church Road/Castlenau crossroads along Queen Elizabeth Walk, with the entrance to Barnes wetlands on our left, the playing fields to our right. It's straight on to the river bank and Harrods old Depository, which is now reassembled into luxury apartments with beautiful, watery views of the wetlands and the river. If I was a birdwatcher and lived in London, a flat here would be paradise - along with a powerful telescope by the window. It's a desirable location, in any case, both for people, birds and other wildlife. The Barnes Wetlands - a significant stopping off point for migrating birds - are very worthwhile a visit. They are open throughout the year. A number 283 bus from Hammersmith takes you right to the entrance, just off Queen Elizabeth Walk.

We alternately strode along, then gingerly tiptoed through the muddy bits, jumping here and there to avoid über-squelchiness and deep puddles. Runners and dogs splashed by, oblivious of their constant spatterings far and wide. Grrrr...

I'd been at the Royal Academy looking at the Anish Kapoor exhibition - which left me on the whole ambivalent and slightly deflated, and with offended housewife syndrome to boot! I want to add that there were also two or three joyous pieces. But I did unreservedly enjoy the sculpture in the front courtyard and imagine that many people cloned their own reflection in one of the balls, getting the same result as me...

John was invited to speak at a conference in Vienna. We had never been there but both of us had always wanted to go, so we decided to include the weekend and explore a little.

Easy flight, mild weather. I had booked a hotel I found on the internet. I'm always anxious about choosing places to stay because John is quite particular. Silence on his part indicates discontent, then descends into gloom. Luckily, this hotel passed the test! The façade of the building was old but inside was very modern. The room was huge and the slate walled shower that would have accommodated at least two people at once, reminded me of the architecture by Peter Zumthor at Therme Vals - a Swiss spa we visited some years ago. We were on the second floor. The bedroom had lots of warm wood against white walls. I noticed each room was called the name of a different vineyard. And there were bottles of wine set out for tasting. It was overwarm but we managed to turn the heating off and open the big, ceiling to floor windows, which looked out over a quiet street.

The sparkly girl at the reception desk had suggested a few places near at hand for dinner. I went to have a quick look round while John set up his computer and on the way back asked her if she could book us in at Kristians Monastiri. Already unpacked, I was now so hungry for my dinner, I hustled John to get ready. Dusk was filtering through the sky as we strolled along, taking in Vienna's romantic, inviting ambiance. Added to which, it turned out to be a great choice of restaurant.

The 19th September 2009. Up at 6.30 am, racing around to water my mimosa tree, amongst other things. The garden is in shadow and silent except for single crabapples falling haphazardly with a hollow bong onto the metal tray of the barbecue - but there is that sense of growing momentum, of the day opening up. The car has been borrowed by our daughters and is hopefully even now speeding towards the Channel Tunnel en route to the south of France. It will appreciate a good long run after being incarcerated so long in its city hutch.

Last bit of ironing, all switches off, loos flushed, cases bearing coloured ribbons in the hallway. Leaving home is always a nightmare for me. I don't want to go, I think of all the things that could go wrong. The taxi arrives, the driver picks up our bags and we are dragged out of our burrow... it is agonizing. We turn the corner at the bottom of the street and all at once I have forgotten about our house. We are on our way.

It's always best to look forward for the most part and my natural instincts seem to mainly work that way. Now I fiddle neurotically in my bag, checking passport and tickets. The ride to Terminal 3 is smooth and we arrive in good time. However, there is an enormous queue and a high percentage of lumbering bodies plonking around. I hope I am not sitting next to one of them.

I am rewarded with a window seat. Turkish Airways give us the best airline lunch I've had in a long time, finishing up with a piece of plum cake and a glass of cherry juice. All prettily presented and delicious.

SLIGHTLY SINISTER

Last week I went to see Francis and Christine Kyle at their gallery in Maddox Street. Ramsey Gibb, who shows his paintings there, has just completed five or six oils of Istanbul, which are to be part of a large 'Byzantium' exhibition, starting on the 11th November. There is one of the waters of the Bosphorus, which I think is outstanding. It's edgy. Viscous, heavy water with a slightly sinister swell below a pinkish blue evening sky, silhouetting the dark minarets of a domed mosque on the opposite shore. I am unaware now that I will soon be sitting on a boat with this selfsame view before my eyes. John took a photo of it, which I must compare with the painting.

Three quarters of an hour to go. Some children are starting to squawk like jackdaws and the scene outside is rather Daliesque. Pale blue lakes and eruptions of cumulous clouds, like forts or fairy castles, rising out of an otherwise deserted landscape. I can imagine a posse of colourful, turbanned janissaries on horseback, flags flying, galloping across the white, pristine plain... far down below are countries I have never been to. Full of dragons, I expect.

The plane drones on and the sun coming through the window makes me drowsy. At last I can see the waters of the Bosphorus, alive with a myriad of boats, great and small. After interminable waits to get visas and find our bags, we are in a bus going to the city centre. Ribbons of scarlet flowers like supine snakes garland the middle of the dual carriageway.

Our hotel welcomes us in the lobby with drinks of soft, pastel coloured syrup. Mine is pink, John's is appropriately green and there's orange and blue to make up the disparate colours of the rainbow. Our room is on the sixth floor, looking out over the street, with a rooftop glimpse of the Topkapi Palace in the distance. There's a shop/café on the opposite side of the street, selling all kinds of delicious sweetmeats. I am immediately seduced and can't wait to be sitting at one of the inviting wooden tables outside. John is more interested in sorting out the various cables he needs for his computer.

There are two low, narrowish beds with firm mattresses. I lie down feeling completely flattened by the travelling and queueing. But happy and rather astonished to be here, in the heart of Istanbul. The hotel dining room is on the top floor, enclosed in glass with a spectacular view of the Golden Horn. The mosques and bridges are illuminated at night and the anticipation of what lies ahead tomorrow is almost unbearable - especially as I am so dog tired at the same time. Luckily, I am completely blotto as soon as my head touches the pillow and stay that way until the dawn wakes me, lighting up the cherry and ochre petals of the large green stemmed flowers on the curtains.

This is going to be a long entry - but, of course, you can skim it........

I don't know how long Maison Bertaux has been running but I've been going there since the 1970s. I took these photos of it last weekend. It has recently expanded and been spruced up. I was on my way to a 'pearl knotting' course at 'The Bead Shop', just by 'The Ivy' restaurant. Maison Bertaux supplied me with a delicious petit déjeuner en route.

John had gone to Lausanne the day before. I had 'flu and was relieved that I could stay in bed and also that he might miss getting it, having left the Krankenhaus. On Monday morning I couldn't believe my eyes at how much snow had fallen in the night. It was pristine and untouched in the garden, except for fox and bird footprints, which were quite intriguing to track. The nocturnal life of the garden unveiled!

It was cold and bright and we took the well trodden path through the woods and then onwards around Pen Ponds. There were lots of birds on the water and it was a treat to see a woodpecker as we made our way through the trees up to the Ballet School on the way home.

A friend invited us to a carol singing concert at St. James's church on Piccadilly - the church with all the stalls outside, which sell everything from old costume jewellery, silk and woollen scarves and amber to coins and badges, silver spoons and teapots, old magnifying glasses, compasses and ancient Ethiopian crosses. The stallholders were packing up for the day as we arrived.

I looked out of our bedroom window one morning at the beginning of November and saw a very healthy looking fox basking in the warmth of the sun on our summerhouse roof. Later, I tiptoed down the garden as quietly as I could and got quite a good close up.

From time to time somebody will ask you what your favourite book, film, music, food is. I don't really have just one favourite as it often depends on the mood I'm in. But for some reason, I do, against all odds, have a favourite book. It's 'The Greengage Summer' by Rumer Godden. I probably read it once every two years in the summer, when it's hot. And every time I read it I wish I could have written it myself.

Hania invited me to go with her to the 19th Festival du Film Britannique de Dinard, held between the 2nd - 5th October. Hurrah! I made my way to Liverpool Street, which is now a wonderful railway station, with a high, glass roof, making it airy and light. In the sixties, it was rather dingy and gloomy and workhouse Victorian in style - and now it's been renovated to almost high art level. It's very streamlined and a joy to use.

I am being frugal but healthy and John pronounced this lunch truly delicious, so I'm noting it down.

John has covered most of our weekend in Dorset in his blog. So I'm just going to list a few of the best and the worst things.

The Best Things were:-

1. The beautiful and comfortable Georgian bed and breakfast in an idyllic setting by the river at Frampton with the three friendly dogs, the painting of a Breton fishmarket by an unknown French artist, Beaufils, and a beautifully carved, pale wood, almost lifesize swan. And the gate, which miraculously opened by itself.

2. Walking through fields of lush, fresh scented, bluegreen grass in the evening under a big sky, making our way down into the valley where Trill farmhouse welcomed us. It looked like a gypsy festival with all the children and dogs roaming around and everybody dancing to the band. And the wine came in huge, pear shaped carafes, echoing some of the drinkers' figures - in the best possible taste.....

3. Climbing hills, which I hadn't done for a very long time and which was rejuvenating.
Tramping the length of the ramparts at the Iron Age hill fort of Maiden Castle, meeting some delightful people there and, later on, sitting by the sheep on a low wall, eating pink Discovery apples, Jarlsberg cheese and Waitrose's very delicious 'tiffin' bars.



4. Meeting the eccentric and knowledgeable old 'cider' man, tending his ramshackle greenhouses next to the ancient mill. The six foot square blue and gold clock which looked as if it should be somewhere like King's Cross station but is stacked up against a wall and weighs a ton. And here's a photo of the incredible hewn stone machinery.

I must just put this down before I forget because it's a story of kindness, of which I think more should be reported. And I also wanted to say 'thank you' to this unknown person, who was so kind to me, especially.

Linking the words 'trouble' and 'headscarves' suggests a current issue which is religion related and has caused fierce debate. Well, that is what most people might think of, reading the title.

However, in London in the early 1970s, everyone was aware of the 'Sloane Ranger' - young and not-so-young smartly dressed women, denizens of Peter Jones in Sloane Square, who were seen out and about in the environs of Chelsea and Belgravia, wearing an expensive silk headscarf, tied 'just so', under the chin.

We inherited a rampantly overgrown garden when we moved here in the early 1970s. The old man who owned it before us had grown tomatoes and there were two greenhouses, which took up a lot of the space. They were quite ramshackle, so we took one down altogether and replaced the other, as I also planned to grow tomatoes. Somebody gave us a black mulberry tree, which sadly came to grief in the big storm some years later. I put in a grapevine by the front door which had no fruit for seven years and since then it's been like a mini vineyard, heavy with bunches of grapes every summer. They turn a rosé colour when ripe and taste of strawberries.



The garden has walls on all sides. These came in especially useful when we kept rabbits and allowed them to run around freely. Although they managed to dig a large warren while unsupervised, they couldn't dig under the walls. They escaped from the clutches of the neighbouring cats by scarpering down the holes they had dug. We were sad when they died but I was thrilled to find I still had some of my original plants, which began to flourish again, with nobody around to eat them.

I had been prowling around endless nooks and crannies in central London, sniffing out the territory for possible office space re John’s new venture, VOLANS, when, without so much as a ‘gardez-loo’, one of those unpredictable and vicious April showers targeted me, threatening to leave me like a drowned rat, upended with the entrails of my pink rose umbrella, in the gutter. And initiating a ‘bad hair’ day to boot…rah…

I ran for cover, bounding through the back door of Stanford’s travel bookshop in Floral Street, where there is a small and welcome café and a feast of travel literature on the shelves beyond. I had a day or so to make up my mind as to where we could go for a week at short notice.

The wind was very blustery this morning. So fierce at times that as I was buying a box of organic eggs from the Somerset farmers, the stallholders had to hold down their flimsy tent coverings, two of which were buffeted mercilessly to the ground..... the eggs survived. I also replenished our apple juice store from Ringden farm orchards. A husband and wife team come up every Saturday from the Kent/Sussex Weald to sell both apples in season and juice all year round. I bought two bottles of 'Russet' and one of 'Discovery' for £5.00. They do a great variety, including Worcester, Cox and Bramley, Red Pippin and Grenadier. Large green glass bottles, great value and truly delicious.

Cyprus. Not a number one choice for me, but John had talked about revisiting his childhood haunts there since I met him in 1968, so when I saw Northern Cyprus scheduled for early March in the ACE brochure, including many castles, I thought I would make it happen.

The tour leader is Curator of the British Architectural Library at the V & A museum. That sounded good, too, and when I managed to book the last two places, I was cautiously optimistic. John was thrilled.

I have an ongoing crisis of confidence whenever I have to be in sole charge of choosing
where to go on holiday. This doesn't happen too often, as we hardly get the chance, (moan), but eight precious days at the end of September had been tortuously squeezed out, like the last bit of toothpaste in the tube and I had to make the most of it, while John, as usual, seemed disinterested in the whole prospect. I used to feel upset about this but looking at his family habits, going on holiday is not top of their list of things to do, so I've put it down to genes. He does usually enjoy himself after a two day acclimatisation process - input from his camera and computer are an important part of this...

On the other hand, I love taking trips. Sometimes I just want to play safe and go somewhere we've been before. I have actually done this in the past but it has been in summer and then winter, second time round. This was in Wengen, near Lakes Thun and Brienz, the region of Switzerland known as the Bernese Oberland, which is famous for mountains such as the Eiger, the Mônch, and the Jungfrau. Wengen is a car free village half way up a mountain and very special in many ways (see another article I have written for further info.).

But it was now late September. Although I am always seduced by mountains and lakes, we were so paper thin and exhausted that we really did need the southern warmth of the sun to slowly soothe, warm up and relax our bodies and transfuse us with that intangible glow of energy. This promotes a specific 'look', which I remember on the faces of my schoolmates being back for the first day of school after the summer vacation. You usually only notice this 'look' after you get home from holiday and it doesn't last for long. But when you have it, you look a million dollars.

For 'luxe, calme et volupté', I ended up choosing the Hotel Orselina, on Lake Maggiore - in the Ticino/Italian part of Switzerland. It was with a mixture of excited anticipation and dread that I opened the envelope containing the tickets. John, meanwhile, packed his case, not knowing where Locarno was. I was happy not to discuss it, in case it proved to be a disappointment.