The brilliant sunshine of the last couple of days has been replaced by cold rain, and I went to the V&A simply because I was deterred by the long queue outside the Natural History Museum. It wasn’t second best however: it’s always good to get lost in the V&A for an hour or two. This time it was mostly amongst the ceramics. My goodness, but the museum has so much stuff! And not all of it what one would care to keep. As I looked at the tall glass cabinets of china ornaments I almost expected to see a replica of my parents’ souvenir of Helensburgh or a novelty ashtray.

Inevitably I drifted towards what was familiar and ended up in front of tableware designed by Eric Ravilious. There were also designs by Vanessa Bell – looking unstructured beside Ravilious’s neat delicacy. En route I was waylaid by monochrome Chinese pottery (which brought back the Burrell Collection) the composition of different types of earthenware (having forgotten what I picked at the Bowes Museum a couple of years ago) and a pile of misfired Delft plates. I am sure I first learned about these in the Delft museum, but I took no photographs and can’t rely on my memory.