Thursday 16 April

In the continuing spirit of Lent, I bought a copy of The Big Issue today in Chesham. Only a small action - but '... change the world for good a little bit every day.'

I hear that Tate Britain is to mount a William Blake exhibition showing many of the paintings he showed in a one man show in 1809. The latter was a flop, getting only a single press review and that was very negative: "a farrago of nonsense, unintelligibleness, and egregious vanity, the wild effusions of a distempered brain." The Tate is bringing together again many of the original 16 paintings - now worth millions.

We also bought a great bottle of Santorini wine - do rush down to Waitrose and try it. It was reduced to about £7 so not exactly a bargain. Santorini is fascinating: we have sailed into the caldera twice. The edge of the crater is 300M high and the island in the centre is still active. But the wine is great!