Monday<\/p>\n
It is not often that one conceives and fulfils a lifetime ambition all in one morning but today I achieved this momentous feat. To wit: over breakfast I read about the great sunflower fields at Westgate Farm near Walsingham, Norfolk, which for the two weeks that the mighty blooms are in mighty bloom across its 16 acres invites people to come and pick their own for a small fee. Have you ever heard of anything better? Desire \u2013 no, need \u2013 filled me.<\/p>\n
I demanded my husband \u2013 the driver of the family, for Walsingham is a short car trip away \u2013 abandon his desk, crowbarred my son out of bed and by 10am we were looking out over acres of sunflowers under an azure sky, and do you know what? It was even better than I had imagined. It\u2019s just sunflowers, you see. Sunflowers almost literally as far as the eye can see. All facing the same way, because they are \u2013 get this \u2013 flowers that follow the sun.<\/p>\n
We followed the little dusty tracks that led through the fields and wind about so that eventually you are facing the flowers and they are facing you, and the effect is so joyful and uplifting that even your family hostages begin to break into smiles.<\/p>\n
We picked our allowance of five each and were home by lunchtime. They are now in a massive vase I was once mocked for buying but which I must have known somewhere deep in my soul was meant for this, and life is good.<\/p>\n
Tuesday<\/p>\n
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are engaged! If this means nothing to you, that\u2019s fine. Move on. If it means something to you \u2013 hurrah! Taylor Swift<\/a> and Travis Kelce are engaged!<\/p>\n People, we need this. We need a good news story that we can follow for months with avidity. It\u2019s been a while, y\u2019know? Everything I need is already in place: it\u2019s a couple I recognise, who seem nice, and in whose existence I am not remotely invested, and the ring is proper. A million dollars\u2019 worth of diamond on a silver or platinum or something band (I do not care about bands, I care about diamonds) that Elizabeth Taylor might have deigned to give house room to.<\/p>\n My only criticism is the floral backdrop against which the happy pair stood for the Instagram shot announcing the engagement. It was SPARSE. It was PALTRY. I suggest a reshoot. You know where. Sunflowers are what you need.<\/p>\n Wednesday<\/p>\n Biddy Baxter, thou shouldst be living at this hour. No, thou really should, because thou wouldst have stopped this latest nonsense in its tracks: Blue Peter is marking its 67th year by ending its tradition of live shows, so that editing can make the content snappier to compete with online content and increase the likelihood of viral moments being created. As if you can a) manufacture a viral moment and b) hope to catch anything like the buzz of a baby elephant crapping all over a studio<\/a> and John Noakes while its keeper hauls gamely and futilely on its leash. Whither the rogue pachyderms of yesteryear?<\/p>\n Lulu the elephant and her bowel movements were broadcast before I was born, yet it remains an iconic moment of my childhood. How? Because we may not have had t\u2019internetz or social media back then but we had Denis Norden, It\u2019ll Be Alright on the Night and eventually home VCRs and we knew how to make our own fun.<\/p>\n Postscript: This entry sent me down something of a rabbit hole and I can now confirm that the 1977 clip of newsreader Colin Baker<\/a> (\u201cSoaked, with cold feet, an aching heart, married, several children, and pissed off. Really, dreadfully pissed off\u201d) is available on YouTube. My fellow Nordenites, enjoy.<\/p>\n \u2018You\u2019re not on the campaign trail now, Ed. Why are you still doing these stunts?\u2019 \u2018Gotta taste for it now. There\u2019s no going back.\u2019 Photograph: Finnbarr Webster\/Getty ImagesThursday<\/p>\n