I had another relaxing weekend planned although it ended up being a bit disjointed and not quite going to plan. But it nearly did.

I had a haircut and a bit of a potter round the shops, then came home to do some jobs. But I never quite got round to gardening as I spent most of the afternoon making bread:



Very rustic isn't it!

At the same time I managed to break my iron, so I had to rush out to Tesco halfway through a shirt. And whilst the bread cooked I managed to eat all the cheese I'd planned to eat with it. So now I'm full and have switched to red wine and Sex & the City.

Just back from the cinema where I saw Coco before Chanel. A wise person had warned me that it was a bit dull and felt longer than it was, and how right they were!

It starred Audrey Tautou, who was a complete ray of sunshine in Amelie, but she was forced to frown her way through this because apparently Coco Chanel was a miserable old cow.

It begins when she is a child, sent to an orphanage with her sister by their father after their mother dies. They then become an unlikely musical duo singing for money in bars whilst sewing to pay the bills. One night they get chatted up by a pair of rich men, one of whom takes a fancy to grumpy Coco. He leaves town and when her sister leaves to set up home with her rich man Coco turns up on her own rich man's doorstep and invites herself to stay. Miraculously he lets her. One night turns into days, turns into weeks, turns into months, until it looks like she'll never leave. At the same time, despite taking his hospitality and offering nothing in return besides sulking and frowning, she criticises his life, his friends, spurns his advances, and then sleeps with one of his friends. Amazingly after all that he falls in love with her. Men are fools. But her heart is broken by the friend and so she moves to Paris to make hats. Then dresses, and the rest is history.

So your basic rags to riches story then. It could have been glamorous and fabulous but somehow it was just dull. It's hard to imagine that once upon a time - well, the 1980s - French films were the thing to see. Not now.

The best bit was Alessandro Nivola who is handsome and charming and I've always liked his stuff. Here he is with his shirt off:



Mmmmmm!

Last night I went to Norwich to see Quadrophenia the musical. Sorry, not 'musical' but 'rock opera'. If only I'd realised that before I went...

Somehow in between reading that it was on, booking a ticket and actually going I forgot that it was written by a Rock band (The Who). I don't know what happened in my brain but it didn't prepare me to Rock. So when the curtain raised to a stage covered in dry ice (very pretty), lots of people dressed as mods and some very bad Rock guitar I visibly winced. I may well be allergic to the guitar solo.

I'd have happily left at the interval but Ema had bought enough sweets to last the whole evening so it seemed a shame to waste them.

I thought it would be more like the film, although when we started thinking about the film neither of us could remember songs in it so that was a foolish hope. And Sting has obviously got better things to do than come to Norwich.

Anyway, the plot. As it was a 'proper' musical/opera with no spoken bits the plot had to be guessed from the lyrics - which you couldn't always hear - and from the acting - which got a bit confusing. But I think it went something like this: teenage boy is unhappy at home, becomes a mod then argues with his father about it at which point his father has a heart attack and dies. Act two: distraught teenager goes to Brighton to take lots of drugs, fight, fail to get off with a shy girl who secretly loves him, and then in a very ambiguous ending dies. Or just sings a big Rock ballad. Which is a kind of death anyway.

It wasn't helped by the fact that there were four actors on stage playing the lead character. But until I read the programme I didn't realise this and just thought they were very similar looking characters. Turns out each one is a different part of his personality - how cliched! - although also they each represent a member of The Who. Maybe.

The second half was better than the first, although by better I mean there were less guitar solos and the stage span round and I was watching eagerly to see if anyone would fall over on it. The cast were ridiculously young and very energetic, but I think it just wasn't my thing.

I think part of the problem may have been pinning down when it was meant to be taking place: it was written, and filmed, in the 70s, but is set in the 60s. It also feels quite 80s because mods were popular then, and 90s because of the whole Britpop thing. This might be taken as a compliment to its timeless quality and ability to appeal to different people year after year, but actually it seemed more like a muddle.

Actually me and The Who have previous: they played at the last Glastonbury I went to, the one where it was so wet and muddy that we watched all the headlining acts on a tiny black and white TV in Jan & Barry's caravan. I seem to remember Pete Townsend claiming to have invented the internet in the 60s, although at that point my brain was muddled by gin, pastry and mud so I might be mistaken. Ema once told him where Hot Cross Buns were in a branch of Waitrose, so she's clearly more glamorous than me!

And so to the third and final evening at home this week.

Monday was cleaning night, Tuesday was admin night and tonight was gift wrapping night. A whole night of it? Well why not? If Tori Spelling's mother can have a gift wrapping room I think I can have an evening!

I would have liked it to have been baking bread evening but the house isn't warm enough to raise dough - it's that awkward time of year where it's cool but not cold enough to put the heating on, so bread baking is postponed until the weekend. I'm strangely excited!

So, evening two of my marathon stay at home. Of course I know three evenings in isn't exactly the end of the world, but I demand constant amusement so it might as well be!

Yesterday was cleaning night which means tonight was admin night. I spent all day shuffling paper then came home and did the same. What fun! At least at home I have access to a shredder. I'm not allowed near it at work, probably because there's a real danger I'll put someone's hand in it because they annoyed me.

So things are now tidy and organised here, which always makes me feel happy with the world. And so to bed....

This week begins with three evenings at home. This could potentially be a bit of a disaster, but I've got some stuff to do at home and have organised it in such a way that it will keep me busy until the fun stuff begins.

So tonight was cleaning night. Although by cleaning I actually only mean hoovering and dusting. Anyone who has been in my house will realise this should only take about ten minutes. Twenty if I stop to check my email halfway through. And longer if I stop to entertain a married man.

Yes I know it was only a week ago when I was saying never again, but clearly I'm weak-willed! In my defense he was one of my repertoire already, I haven't added any more madness to the portfolio. And I didn't go chasing after him, he rang me and it seemed rude to say no. Besides, he's fun.

Although not quite so much fun tonight. Perhaps it was because he'd only just finished work. Or because I had part of my mind on the cleaning. When we were dressing he made the stupid mistake of saying, "how was that?" - never, ever ask that question! I found myself saying, "excellent!" in a particular chipper voice, when what I really meant was, "well it got me away from the ironing for five minutes", which I suspect is what his wife usually thinks. Will I ever learn?!

Today was one of the Heritage Open Days, an annual event during which lots of old buildings are open to the public, some of which are not normally open and all of which are free. I've been going to it locally for the last few years and it's fab!

This year I was hoping to see some stuff in Norwich but when I looked into what was open it seemed like nothing but churches. There really are an awful lot of churches there. There's some kind of old saying that suggests there used to be a different pub in Norwich for every week day and enough churches for every weekend and I wouldn't be surprised if it were true. So I went to King's Lynn with Trish, who laughs at my love of dull old buildings but is always there taking pictures.

First stop was the Jewish Cemetery, a tiny little walled area in the shadow of the roughest flats in town. There are less than twenty graves there and it seems amazing that it has survived. Trish managed to get a dinner invite out of the couple who were talking to people about it, which was a good start.

Then we crossed the road to the old County Court building, which has most recently been used as offices for an insurance firm. Alas it just looks like deserted offices and any historic significance it had was lost on me. Next we had a bonus treat - a collection of gravestones next door to a children's nursery on the edge of The Walks.

After that was a Methodist church, one of those lovely Victorian ones with a gallery around the top. Lovely building, but being inside a church just makes me uneasy. Then we headed to the Old Gaol House which was the old police station. There are cells, a gallows, a ducking stool for witches, then a room full of silver cups and regalia. We went next door to the Guildhall, which is a lovely venue for a wedding and is full of big mirrors and huge chandeliers.



Then we went through Thoresby College to the Quay where we sat outside the Green Quay building with tea and a huge slice of chocolate cake.



There was just time for one final building, The Bank House Hotel, which apparently had something to do with the family that formed Barclays Bank and is now a hotel and restaurant. We got to have a poke around the cellars:



There's a secret tunnel in one corner that you weren't allowed to go down - I wonder where that went? And with that I think I may have seen every old building in King's Lynn I need to see. Well done Lynn for managing so many!

And of course after that there's was only one thing to do - food and gossip back at Trish's! Janet made chips:



OCD do you think? It was a lovely end to a fun afternoon, thank you everyone! XXX