Five things make a weekend in London

• Friends, of course: arriving weary at the Bears', and finding they had invited A and A to dinner, driving south of the river to visit D. and valydiarosada


• Weekend newspapers: the massed attack on the prize crossword, the books pages - the lead article this week was about 20 years of the Forward prize, and the online version includes a poem from each of the winning collections (recommended: Michael Donaghy's Caliban's Books)


• London itself: walking through Hyde Park to the Serpentine, and on to the V & A. I'm reading A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book, and was reminded (because it is about, among other things, ceramics and the V & A) of her article about the new ceramics gallery. What we saw was not what she describes, but it was an abundance of beautiful things, and I hope to return with more time to stop and gaze.


• Music: Red Chamber Bluegrass


• Quinces: we took the ladder into the garden and plucked the last fruit, some already rotting among the leaves but some bigger and more golden than we've ever had from the tree - a generous crop, but this one is so beautiful on its own...