While in London there were still sales so I could get a bargain or two. I very rarely buy anything, anywhere, which is not on sale. Sales make me feel weak in the knees especially when there are very good buys. At this point of my life I really need nothing material. We could all do with less clothes, less shoes and bags, less everything. And yet my wardrobe always seems to be in crisis. But retail therapy is necessary to keep our spirit buoyant.

One of my sisters has been going through a minimalist phase for some years now, since she started practising Yoga in fact. She keeps advising me to ‘shed as much as possible.’ I am lucky since she has ‘shed’ some of her accessories into my wardrobe. Pity I cannot get into any of her clothes since she eats far less chocolate than me and with all the goodwill in the world a size 18 body simply cannot fit into a size 12 dress no matter for how long you try to breathe in to spirit away the Michelin tyres.

Anyway, in London I went with a specific list of things I wanted to bring back, a very short list. Two-toned shoes were at the top of it. Strappy sandles are not for me. You can keep your Manolo Blahnik’s if you are lucky enough to have them. Unlike Carrie Bradshaw the shoe-loving central figure of the TV series Sex and the City I could never get attached to his impossible shoes even if I could afford them.

When Carrie found herself on the grungier side of New York and came face to face with a mugger she pleaded: “Please sir, you can take my Fendi baguette, you can take my ring and my watch but don’t take my Manolo Blahniks.” Unfortunately the mugger took no notice and ran fast, taking her strappy sandles with vertiginous heels with him.

I would rather wear two-toned shoes or open-toed ones in summer. Sandles need too much energy to keep straps in place.

Now London is full of shoes but none are the kind that I wear, it seems. So I have come back with them still on my list. For those of you who are shopaholics-at-a-decent-price, there is an enormous Clark’s factory outlet in Elephant & Castle which sells shoes and bags. I went round each shelf with my 1980 baby but came away with nothing. I suppose I have had enough of Clark’s shoes while at school. Too practical for my liking. One needs to strike a happy balance in everything, including shoes.

I went with both my girls to TK Maxx in Hammersmith…There are others of course and bigger ones…this is an American chain… but the Hammersmith one is the one we know best and where we feel at home. We resolved not to purchase anything black but came out with 8 black or black and white items between us. I left my heart with a red pair of shoes with a slashed toe…like Cinderella’s ugly sisters I tried squeezing my size 39-sometimes-40 feet into their size 38 but finally, persuaded by my two darlings, I abandoned the project. One has to walk in shoes, even if only for a short distance. Buying them simply to be admired at home is useless. Shopping with the girls is fun as they are patient and bring me clothes to try on and give me advice. They don’t mind if I select 20 pieces and then only purchase two.

One Saturday we enjoyed the lovely sunny morning at Portobello Road in Notting Hill. I love street markets even if this one is not cheap at all on the whole. My patient son-in-law, three women in tow, said I must see the Electric, a cinema with luxurious leather seats, footstools and tables for food and drink – “more space for a more comfortable movie experience.”

Monday is Electric Scream! day and at 3pm mothers or nannies with babies less than one-year-old can watch a film with baby on their lap and know they are not disturbing anyone. Only grown ups with a baby can attend this slot. What a good idea!

I loved the retro shops in Notting Hill and had I known about them before I would not have discarded my ‘60s and ‘70s clothes and accessories which these shops sell to locals and tourists.

I told my girls how sorry I was to have missed De-Lovely, a film about Cole Porter, that rare breed who was equally at home with a lyric as a melody. So one evening they brought the DVD home and we enjoyed watching it. Perhaps Cole Porter’s most famous musical is Kiss Me, Kate but he also wrote the music and lyrics for High Society the film with the beautiful Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby and it’s most memorable song: True Love. Porter was super prolific and was proud of the fact that he worked alone. I suppose you could call him the Kate Moss of songwriters and didn’t get out of bed if he wasn’t going to compose – words and lyrics mind you – at least a dozen songs a day. Asked who wrote Some Enchanted Evening, he replied: “Rodgers and Hammerstein. If you can imagine it taking two men to write one song.”

The following morning I trooped off to Virgin Records to see what Cole Porter CDs they had. I bought one which had songs I had been familiar with for years: I’ve Got You Under My Skin, I Love You, Begin the Beguine, In the Still of the Night, Who Wants to be a Millionaire and of course the famous I Love Paris which I did not know he had composed and the gorgeous You Do Something to Me. With all these lovely songs and more I cannot understand why the film was called De-Lovely, after one of his less known songs.

He married a rich widow for convenience – some women will put up with anything for he had endless homosexual relationships throughout his young days at Yale and his marriage. His song Experience, just about sums up his rough and tumble amorality. He was glamorous, vain and infinitely gifted. I haven’t stopped playing my new CD.

I want to finish off with the enjoyable concert at St James Music Room with mezzo soprano Sophia Grech accompanied by Eleonora Bekova on the piano. Sophia was relaxed and has presence. She had a very varied repertoire from Early Italian songs and arias to Spanish songs, German Lieder and at least six arias from different operas. She also sang one French song by Berlioz, Absence.

I am afraid my heart sinks when it comes to early music, soothing as many of these works are. So I was pleased when this part of the programme was over. Oboist John McDonough, during the interval, commented that Sophia’s voice reminded him of ‘a rich burgundy’. I loved her best singing from Massenet’s Werther, Va laisse couler mes larmes, the Seguidilla and Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen, Mon Coeur s’ouvre a ta voix from Saint Saëns Samson et Dalila. This is the recognisable world which I understand. She was alive all the time but she really loved singing the Spanish pieces.

Sophia managed to elicit a whole range of notes from her voice, though she was very occasionally weak on her upper register. Someone in the audience said he would have liked to be able to compose music especially for her voice – only he isn’t a composer. Sophia understood well the quicksilver nature of the life of feeling, whether she was singing in German, Italian, Spanish....

A small number of disaffected individuals called last Sunday morning after reading my paragraph about Where’s Everybody? and their consultancies, jingles, public relations work, surveys and so on. Each one gave me his version of this and that, most of it firsthand knowledge but alas unprintable since I have no documentary evidence. However, one of them told me: “I love their choice of title for their company, Where’s Everybody?’ At this stage they should think about changing it. Why, they are everywhere!”