1. We always try to have a Gallery Day when visiting family in London and on our way to the Royal Academy stopped for a coffee and a croissant in the Cafe Concerto where this beautiful Gingerbread house was the centrepiece of the shop window.

2. The exhibitions at the Royal Academy were so contrasting today. We started with a major retrospective of Anselm Keifer which was breathtaking. The works were huge and very disturbing in their subject matter, one from the attic series has stayed lodged in my mind. Sadly, photography was not allowed but you could look him up. The other exhibition was of the portraits of Giovanni Battista Moroni, a sixteenth century Italian artist whose paintings were incredibly beautiful. The way fabric on clothes flowed, the detail of the jewellery, the expressions on the faces were mesmerising and the way he painted hands, always holding something or marking a place in a book being read just caught my imagination. I loved especially the painting of The Widower with his hands around the shoulders of his two young daughters. there’s a story to be told there, I feel…….

3 The lights in Old Bond Street were peacocks and gorgeous. I was sorry we weren’t there late enough to see them in the dark.