I think I've finally cracked this weekend business!

I did so much going out in the week that I had absolutely no expectation at all of going out today. So there's wasn't that feeling that I could be doing something more fun, because I'd had plenty of fun so I didn't feel like I needed more. Which gave me the freedom to get on with some everyday stuff without being begrudging about it.

I ended up spending ages on the car. The mats are now cleaning than when I bought them, all thanks to some foam in a can. I expect it's poisonous and evil but it cleaned like a dream! Then I polished the bodywork. I happily spent £15 on a bottle of polish and then spent two hours using it: truly I have discovered my inner middle-aged Dad!

After that it was the ironing, and with that behind me I thought I'd go for a bonus job: house insurance. Thirty minutes later it was all sorted for another year, over £100.00 saved - hurrah!

And now I've just finished watering the garden, have poured a beer, and am moments away from a big bowl of ice cream and a few episodes of Sex & the City. Why aren't weekends always this easy?! Although actually it shouldn't be according to today's horoscope:

"Your key planet Saturn is compromised by a quincunx from Neptune now putting you in an unsolvable existential dilemma."

Is it just me or does quincunx sounded like an exotic fruit? Apparently it's a geometric pattern, which doesn't make the rest of it any clearer. I wonder what my dilemma can be?

This week's going out seems to have developed a nice rhythm - one night out, one night in. So tonight would be a night out, and I went to the cinema.

But first I had time to do a little light shopping. I was really in the mood to buy something, but the trouble is I didn't want or need anything. Which probably explains how I came away with moisturiser, envelopes and a cheap book.

The film was Julie & Julia, which turned out to be great! I didn't really know much about it but as I'm newly converted to Meryl Streep I wanted to go anyway. Turns out it was about all of my favourite things: food, blogging, New York, and this week's bonus obsession - Paris!

It's two stories in one, both of them true: a 30 year old woman who moves from Brooklyn to Queens and hates it so decides to work her way through a big book of French cookery and blog about it. The other story is about the author of the French cookery book, and how she came to write the book - to keep herself busy whilst her husband is at work, because it's the 1950s.

It sounds a bit dull, a bit chick-flicky, but actually it's great! Meryl Streep plays the cookery writer and she's clearly having a huge amount of fun with the part! Her husband is played by Stanley Tucci who I instantly fell in love with. His character is smart, funny, creative, supportive of his wife and has a great chest - he would make the perfect husband! The blogger is played by Amy Adams, who I'm getting a bit of a liking for. Her husband was played by a lovely actor. So, great cast!

It's just a really nice story, and New York and Paris both look great! Don't go and see it on an empty stomach though because there's so much food in it you'll be starving by the end of it! Shockingly there were only five people in the cinema, which is very poor indeed!

This week's going out and being sociable continued last night with Dave Gorman. You may have seen him on TV - he had a show called Are you Dave Gorman? in which he travelled the world trying to meet people who share his name. He's a comedian, but his shows have usually been based round and idea or a series of events, rather than the usual ramblings of a stand-up comedian.

I've seen his 3 or 4 times in the past and have always loved him. But then he did a film for TV in which he travelled across the US, from coast to coast, in search of the 'real' America. Which basically meant buying petrol from independent gas stations, buying food from independent shops and staying in hotels that weren't part of a chain. I hated it! The arrogance of the man to assume that an Englishman can go to another country and find the 'real' bit! And all the shit about not giving money to The Man is naive and unrealistic. And hypocritical from someone who is currently voicing the Homebase adverts. He came across as whining and selfish and annoying.

So I was genuinely scared that I wouldn't like him anymore, especially as he was doing a show without a grand idea to base it on. I was slightly encouraged when it turned out that he was cycling between gigs, so yesterday he had cycled from Lowestoft! But actually it turned out to be a very small part of his show and there was really no need to panic.

It's hard to write about a comedy gig as the jokes would lose something in the retelling, and also he asked the audience not to Twitter and blog about the show so it won't spoilt for the next audience. So I won't. But I will say I laughed harder than I have in months, it was a triumph!

We had seats in the third row near the centre, which was uncomfortably close, although I didn't feel as vulnerable as Ema who had foolishly worn a yellow jacket! He's not someone I would have ever thought I fancied but at various points in the show he puts on his glasses to read things and instantly he is transformed into a someone incredibly attractive! I'd forgotten the amazing power of glasses...

So, a fun night out. Well done King's Lynn. Well done Dave.

Other news:

There are odd things going on with my horoscope again: yesterday's said to be very careful about jumping into bed with someone I hardly know as it would make someone else jealous. Honestly, as if! But it's the second time in a week it's warned me off casual sex - what's that about?!

It's fair to say that work is going very badly this week. If I get through the week without tears or a fight it will be a miracle! Of course this would usually prompt me to spend the evening overeating and hiding in bed, but the old ways must change so last night I went to the cinema.

A few weeks ago I read about (500) days of Summer and thought it sounded like just the kind of thing I should be watching. Inevitably it wasn't being shown locally so I went to Cambridge to see it, figuring it would be worth the effort. How right I was!

It's a romantic comedy, but without all the awfulness that implies: no Jennifer Aniston, no Drew Barrymore, no sickly sweet ending - hurrah!

It's documents a 500 day long relationship between Tom, a failed architect turned greetings card writer, who has a good line in skinny cardigans and big headphones, and a woman called Summer, who works in his office. She's quirky and has a great fringe, but doesn't want a relationship whereas he believes in love and is waiting to fall in love.

It moves backwards and forwards in time, introducing each scene with the number of the day in which it takes places, juxtaposing similar scenes so the deterioration of the relationship is easy to see. There is no happy ending, but it is extremely beautiful - it looks stunning, it has a great soundtrack and is just lovely and sweet and warm without being sickly or horrid.

The cast is great, although the only one of them I recognise is Zooey Deschanel who has done loads of good stuff although the only thing I've seen her in is The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Anyway, it's utterly fabulous and you should see it.

It's obviously the week for things about breaking up as I've just got the new Noah & the Whale CD, The First Days of Spring, which is about the end of a relationship. Their first album was interesting but grated on me slightly as it was overly perky, but then I gave it another chance and it turns out to be great! The new album is accompanied by a film, which I saw at Latitude, which was a bit obvious but nice to look at and it sounded great with the album. Oddly the album sounds less good without it.

Back to the film.

The first think I thought - and Twittered - when I left the cinema was that it's time for me to get my heartbroken again. It's time for me to take a chance and feel something instead of the nothing I've been feeling for as long as I can remember. It's been a while - the last person was Ken, and that was five years ago, and before that would have been Robert, which is now so far back in time it seems like another life.

I'm sure somewhere deep inside me I still believe in love, I think I've just forgotten that it might be a possibility. Of course the realistic part of me thinks it isn't a possibility - I live in a small town in a not very gay county, what are the chances of meeting Mr Right? But of course another part of me knows I'm just saying that because I'm scared to make the leap.

I've no idea how I could make it happen, because the beauty of these things is that they just happen, so I guess I just need to be open to suggestion. And stop sleeping with married men. We'll see...

Anyway, I had a few sobs on the way home, driving back with the roof down because it was so warm, listening to a CD by Death Cab for Cutie, which turned out to be strangely appropriate as Zooey Deschanel is engaged to the lead singer.

I do love films that make you sad but happy and thoughtful - it's not Art unless it makes you feel something!

Mum has been a bit trying of late. When I saw her yesterday she was telling me how the mastic between her windows and the walls had started to perish. I braced myself for a new set of windows before Christmas but she said she won't worry about it until the spring, which made me wonder why we were having the conversation in the first place!

The trouble is that she spends too much time at home on her own and has nothing to do but get small things out of proportion. She needs to go out more but as she has no car that's a bit tricky. Of course she could take a bus but she seems to have forgotten how. Part of me things she's a grown-up and should sort herself out, but another part of me thinks it's easier just to take her out, so yesterday morning that's what I did.

There's a country house just up the road called Narborough Hall which is open every summer and has an art exhibition as well as beautiful gardens. I'd been meaning to go since Sarah's Mum told me about it after she visited last summer. It also gets a whole chapter in Julie Myerson's marvellous The Lost Child.

I didn't think I'd get to go this year, but then the local paper wrote about it and said they had an Andy Warhol exhibition on so I had to go! Andy Warhol within 30 minutes of my house - how marvellous!! The article made me laugh and was very 'local': "his works - which have become valuable collector's pieces - sell for literally millions of dollars" - love the 'literally'! And when they talk about the prices - because all of the works are for sale - they find £100,00 "staggering", which it might be locally but when Damien Hurst's diamond skull thing sells for £50million it is a bit of a drop in the ocean!

Anyway, the pictures were thrilling! I've seen loads of his work before but there's so much of it that there's always something new to see. There was the usual stuff: a Jackie O painting in nicely muted colours; the flowers; a peelable banana from the first Velvet Underground album. My favourites were a self portrait printed on silver paper which would look stunning in my living room, and a great yellow plane ticket, which was gorgeous!

But how did they end up in Norfolk? Well the man who owns the house also has a gallery in London and the Hall is his country home.

The gardens themselves are lovely! There's an amazing walled garden, which is the most fabulous I have ever seen! I've loved walled gardens ever since I visited one at Holkham Hall as a teenager. There's something ridiculously romantic about them, the ideal place for trysts and secret assignations. This one is a kitchen garden with more fruit and vegetables than I've seen in one place before - there were plum trees with more fruit on them than you can count, and artichokes which I've never seen apart from on a plate. There are herbs everywhere and lovely old roses climbing the walls - heavenly!

Out the front of the Hall are newly created gardens, with white borders, blue borders, a fountain and stunning views! You can walk along a river, then past a lake - it's all ridiculously gorgeous!

There is also a cafe which has been featured in the Waitrose magazine, apparently selling cakes made by the owner's children, but we didn't get that far as Mum doesn't really do tea and cake unless she is at home and was already looking at her watch worrying about the mince she left in the oven.

Some favourite bits from the website:

The Blue Garden was designed by the owner's youngest daughter, Mermaid. That's right, Mermaid. I can picture the scene: "Supper's ready Mermaid darling!" Posh people - what are they like! (The other daughter is called Fen, which leaves me speechless.)

One border of the walled garden is inspired by a poem by Gerald Manley Hopkins, because gardens always are aren't they! My own garden is inspired by the Pam Ayres poem I wish I'd looked after my teeth.

I shouldn't mock, the house is stunning as are the gardens and the Warhol pictures were lovely! Of course I took photos:

narborough hall

Yesterday was sunny, which was an unexpected bonus and not to be wasted, so I made the most of it. Well not really the 'most' as that surely should involve the beach or some kind of outdoor pleasure with a book and food. Instead I did piles of washing, polished bits of the car and did some gardening. All very productive and satisfying. Apart from the bit where I discovered my fence is rotting and needs replacing, and when my cheap Tesco sheet dyed my lovely flowery duvet cover pink. Ah well, it was a nice day anyway.

Then I cooked. It's all that Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's fault - he wrote an article in the Guardian about pizza and I thought, "ooh, I could do that!" Unfortunately Hugh is a popular man with many kids so his recipe feeds 8, so I used a Delia meant to feed two and halved it, but the curse of the half portion struck again and the dough didn't really rise. Still, the toppings were nice: