From Hamamelis Mollis to Jodie Marsh

I've had a super-size weekend. Which is great, as it was just what I felt like. We had one of our favourite families to stay, and on Friday night drank lots of Cava, ate black-eyed beans with many tasty extra bits, and watched (rather to my surprise) the hugely addictive (also to my surprise) Celebrity Big Brother.

We've been watching it, on and off, ever since. I'm relieved Chantelle came through her trial by ordeal relatively unscathed. They could have been evil to her, and she wouldn't have deserved it, she seems not at all up herself. It's a bit predictable to be bowled over by celebrity narcissism, so I won't waste words on Pete Burns, the Baywatch babe or the bloke with the spikes in his nose, and Rula, Preston and Barrymore seem harmless enough, though I am terrified of waking up one day to find that I have Lenska Hair.

No, the ones who are captivating are Gorgeous George and decidedly UnGorgeous Jodie. Who does he think he is, with his Cuba trackies? He's kind of frightening and ridiculous at the same time, and there is little less attractive in this world than a short man smoking a fat cigar. But Jodie makes him look like a god. She's a car crash of a human being. I get to the point where I feel bad just watching her, but then she says something which leaves me utterly devoid of sympathy for her. Get her out of there and get her some therapy, for pity's sake.

However, I am happy to report alongside this that we erased residual reality TV shame with many spiritually enriching cultural activities. My favourite of these almost never happened - M wanted to go into the Botanic Gardens on the way into Oxford and I pulled a face and said it would be rubbish in January.

And it's amazing how wrong one person can be. It was almost empty, and the deciduous trees were splayed out magnificently against the slate grey sky. Lots of plants were indeed dormant, but this made the ones which were doing their thing look even more beautiful. There was a Hamamelis Mollis (aka witch hazel) which was looking pretty much perfect -- bare branches covered in powdery spidery yellow flowers with their delicate astringent smell. We ran over to smell it, and the only other people we could see -- three Japanese tourists -- came over as well. There were eight of us standing round this little tree, smelling the perfume and smiling shyly at each other.

The glass houses were also open, and also emptier than I have ever seen them. We admired cacti and banana trees and venus fly traps. It was very very cool.

Later we went to the Bodleian and the Pitt Rivers Museum. I can't quite believe I've managed to avoid the Pitt Rivers for the last decade, and I loved it even though it was heaving with every middle class child in Oxford and their braying parents. I was thoroughly freaked out, mind -- not by the shrunken heads (though they are authentically freaky) but by an Indian's fingertip, cut off some time in the 1930s to attest to his reliability as a witness in an adultery trial.

The way we lived then. The way we live now. Lots of food for thought to digest together with my Sunday lunch. What a good way to spend precious time.

joella