Long weekend

|  A new Saturday tradition is brunch and reading the Guardian in a tapas place called Black Cat. I have a fondness for establishments with "Cat" in the name (there was a bar called El Gato in Oviedo that is still among my favourite places). This one doesn't have many cat pictures and is quite bare, but somehow the lonely small picture hung quite high on the wall makes me very happy.

|  More food - making Hugh's Gratin Dauphinois (not pictured: too much sea salt chocolate)

|  I only discovered Elizabeth Jane Howard recently (I read The Light Years, and the good news is it is part of a trilogy). This book was one of four I recently bought at a charity book sale coffee morning; I love when I find older editions.

|  Swan-watching in Oranmore (and being told I must stop fearfully holding on to my bag all the time - I wasn't even aware of this habit)

The soundtrack: I cried my eyes out listening to songs that do that to me (a mention of Kaspar Hauser in Middlesex had led me down that nostalgia path, via Reinhard Mey, to relistening to all these songwriters, German, Spanish - Joaquín Sabina! - American, and new-to-me Czech music I discovered through the film Year of the Devil). During the week lots of Lisa Hannigan in my classes and then again in a café where I met up with a friend. Ella Fitzgerald in the Black Cat, and my older sister and her husband's first dance song on repeat at home.

I went for a nice run on the prom on Sunday morning, in glorious weather, passing lots of smiley early-risers. In the evening we went to our friends' engagement party, and I spent this afternoon drawing while listening to podcasts - I have become quite disciplined about my Mondays at home.