Piggy

Whatever has happened to Sarah Lucas's hideous giant plastic (OK, bronze) carthorse and wagon that used to stand in the field beyond Snape Maltings? Every time I saw it I shuddered, and when Hugo took to peeing up against its massive fetlock I thought it utterly appropriate. This woman has produced some of the most memorable feminist sculptures I've ever seen, provocative and frank, and yet she also created this abomination. There's nought so queer. Anyway, it's gone, and good riddance I say.

Ugh! Though it doesn't look too bad here

 Last night was the first of the Celebration evenings when children from local Suffolk schools perform musical works, often written by themselves. The most moving were a group of children from an Ipswich school which provides help with their 'complex barriers to learning'. They sang and mimed "Fire" by Jonathan Dove, and the joy and concentration on their faces as they did their simple choreographed movements and sang caused my heart to lurch.

I gave another usher a lift home, and how embarrassed I was when we opened the car doors to be met by dripping windows and a fogged up windscreen. Hugo, the resident dog, had clearly puffed and panted his way through the evening and when he saw us he emitted a series of low but anguished howls. My colleague was not in a position to be judgemental, however, and I pretended to be unabashed. Anyway, we're making progress on the leaving-at-home front. So far this week I've been out for around two hours on three occasions, and on Friday I am going to see I, Daniel Blake, at the cinema and plan to leave him then too. I think he'll be fine, and look forward to the day when he'll stay at home when I'm working at Snape too. When I came home today he was very pleased to see me but not distressed, and we had a prolonged play and a big treat. Hopefully our reunion and what it involves will stay with him and encourage him.

On my way home I stopped off to buy some milk, and not having had chocolate for several days thought I'd see what there was. And so I came home with a box of Truly Irresistible chocolate prosecco truffles, and a large packet of Truly Irresistible broken pieces of hammer toffee. Now I could suck toffee until the cows came home. My happiest childhood memories were when I had something sweet to chew and savour. But sweet things make me go iggedy-biggedy as I get a terrific sugar rush, and then I have to quickly eat some nuts. It never used to be thus. So I restricted myself to two chocolates and three jagged lumps of toffee and just suffered a bit of heightened agitation and twitchiness. Years ago my favourite was Thornton's dark chocolate-covered toffees which were sometimes hard and sometimes soft. I'd gorge on half the packet and then post the other half through a postbox. Had I just thrown them away I'd have gone back later to retrieve them. Anyway, it worked. I'm much more disciplined now, the fear of diabetes always looming. The two boxes are never out of my awareness but I'll only dip in when I let myself. But how I wish I hadn't bought them.