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We took some much-needed time off at the end of last week and went to York to meet up with dear friends and an exceptionally lovely and smiley baby. The drive over was beautiful -- the leaves' colours were so rich and varied, and the cold sun shining on everything made the edges sharp and striking. Unfortunately the weather when we got there was striking in a different way -- cold and moodily grey, as you can see. But quite good for pictures and for the stark contrast with the amazing light and warmth inside the Minster. It was overwhelming in the best way -- walking around with the lovely, lovely K was a perfect pause of calm. We were laughing at how tiny and silly we are in comparison with this massive arching structure, and this was a real comfort. That must be how the poor Medieval people kept going in their lives of grinding work and poverty -- going to the Minster must have felt like a promise of hugeness and richness that, by putting a huge eternity around a person's own little moment, makes your own life oddly a bit more manageable, as a tiny speck in the midst of it all. Note also how York has button and wool shops, which can only be good. Working on keeping up the spirits now we're back -- so it's carving 'jack lanterns' tonight, as the American calls them.

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Here are more beautiful Portuguese tiles, photos taken at the palace in Sintra. It's a very lovely town in the mountains, where we had tea in the kind of shop I wish we had more of here; indeed, the kind of shop I would like to run. There would be the enormous pleasure of telling my current employer where to go, followed by the delights of setting up shop, choosing teas, deciding what to cook (I'd be pretty tough -- no real choice on the menu, I'm afraid -- you'd have to have what I deem good for you) and filling the place with music and various pleasing objects. And of course the hostess would be doglet, in an apron at the cash desk.

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FFS. Being cold from no hot water or heating; enormous IKEA deliveries on my doorstep that I haven't ordered; escaped doglets and thence tearing around, chasing a seemingly flying French bulldog through the streets in my pyjamas and slippers, eventually careering into the soggy meadow where my trousers got soaked, I slipped on the leaves and still she continued to evade me, dancing with delight and bobbing like Muhammed Ali because I couldn't grab her. Coco, you drive me insane!! All these things have happened in the last 24 hours. Days when things astound me by their total failure to go right, and when things that are peeving enough normally (teenage behaviour in grown women, for example, or breezy cover ups at work) start to burrow under your skin and make you question everything, including your own sanity. Lucky, then, that there are some things that are brightly coloured and nourishing. How lovely is the green of this juice? There's spinach in that. Figs in the shops – a last burst to remind you of summer warmth – is also not at all bad. It's autumn, so bad days and good.

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*Harness now mandatory.

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As some parts of life continue to be intractably difficult, it's soothing to focus on home and surroundings. In a disorientating week I've met with heartfelt sadness as dear friends have had frail and ailing parents, people have been sad and bereft and I've felt weepy with them. Also a week in which I heard about a craven leap to over-promotion in a colleague -- but at least this gave me the opportunity for much evil cackling in the pub with a lovely, sympathetic colleague (it's all bollocks really seems to be the conclusion). Also cuddled a beautiful, smiling bundle of baby curiosity. Exhausting, and ironic (in the Kierkegaard rather than Alanis Morrisette sense). Which makes me feel compelled to be a bit more appreciative of home life. Here are some recent additions -- managed to change the central light in the lounge from a bare lightbulb to this circles-and-lines arrangement; we were given a gorgeous, detailed and bright print of a bird by Fiona Watson as a beautiful wedding gift (on the wall at the end of this image of my beloved sideboard); I hung up a huge, wadded curtain at the kitchen entry to keep us warm (this side is the map of the world; the other side is a patchwork of leftover fabrics; I don't have any good pictures of it yet); and, although it's not new, the engraving by Alistair Gow that I bought at his graduation show at the Glasgow School of Art in 2010. I was very happy to see that he has some prints at the Glasgow Print Studio now.