Age cannot wither her…but does make her bloody tierd….

Everyone seems to be saying the same thing .......  it’s been a long week. I think it's the weather. It's exhausting.

I went to a Christening at Emmanuel College in Cambridge and the sun actually shone for my friend’s son. We went on the train. A late marriage quickly followed by a much wanted baby meant it was a very special day. There were ducks on the lawn. Our party had swelled for the return. We bought wine at the station M&S and continued the celebration with a train- party on the journey home.

I met someone some weeks ago but I don’t know if we're dating or not. It's perplexing me and so I made a triple layer, Devil’s Food cake for my boy's birthday, with white chocolate frosting, from a recipe in the Magnolia Bakery Cook Book. I didn’t know I was making a triple layer cake because I hadn’t read it properly. I had enough frosting to ice most of north London.

I had dinner with friend’s and drank too much wine because the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not had not called. So, I decided I wasn't dating him. When I got home I discovered I had a missed call from the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not, hoping we were still on for our date at the Bauhaus exhibition at the Barbican. So, I decided I was dating him. 

I went to the cinema and saw Blackthorn, the story Butch Cassidy seeing out his retirement in Bolivia, and fell in love with Sam Shepard. Again. And Bolivia. When I was in Argentina this time last year, I travelled north to Salta, near the border with Bolivia and drank mate surrounded by the hills of 7 colours and walked on the salt flats, pretending I was Etta Place. And I wished I was there again.

I went to the Bauhaus exhibition at the Barbican with the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not. It was a delight. We went for a noisy drink in The Slaughtered Lamb but we are old and it was loud. So we went for a quiet drink in St. John Bar & Restaurant. It reminds me of being in New York. And I wished I was there again.

A confusing good-bye from the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not left me confused. The drama kept me awake. So when I got home from work I picked some rhubarb from my yard and made Raspberry & Rhubarb Crumble Cakes with Marscapone. And ate them on the sofa watching Episodes and Graham Norton and I thought, if you have to wonder if you're dating someone or not then the answer is probably in the question....

Top tip: Go see: Jeff Who Lives At Home…..made me laugh, made me cry and Susan Sarandon looks brilliant…the woman’s 65!!

Tim nice but.....not really a rock star....

'Let us pray' said Tim Robbins, pulling on his guitar.

Last week Tim Robbins and the Rogues Gallery Band performed what I believe was their one and only London gig, at the Union Chapel in Islington, and I went. He was looking very well for a man in his early 50s: dressed in black jeans and black frock coat, the sort usually favoured by the gambler in wild west movies, a couple of stone lighter than when I used to see him and his sons mooching around the West Village when I lived in New York (trailing after someone going in the same direction as you doesn't constitute stalking ..... surely?) Now, I should declare I am a bit of a fan, but most of my fandom is based on fancying him (tall, full head of hair......) and, well, even I have to admit this twist in his career is a vanity project of enormous proportions. And of course being someone who worships at the alter of Susan Sarandon, him being shacked up with her did lend him a certain cache. He has now said his remark about this being his midlife crisis album, made to Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs, was just a joke. But, to be honest, although he can definitely hold a tune and play a guitar ....... and has obviously spent a lot of time in his bedroom writing songs ........... there is a reason why Tim Robbins is an actor.

Don't get me wrong he's not awful, sort of Warren Zevon meets Johnny Cash by way of Joni Mitchell, except not as good. He sang a mixture of covers and his own compositions but the lyrics were a tad cheesy. I'm nothing if not a sucker for a cover version and he did them very well which only served to highlight the differences, like they were the proper songs. It didn't help when his were prefaced with things like: 'this is about Nelson Mandela, who I had the good fortune to meet......' The biggest part of the evening, quite literally, was his crouch. Honestly, framed by the curve of his guitar, I couldn't take my eyes off it. Nor could my companion. Or the posse of ladies inappropriately dressed for this time of year, sat in the front row. Actually, I expected the whole congregation to be made up just of women of all ages but it was about 50/50 male and female, albeit almost all middle aged and many were obviously husband and wife combos. Personally, I believe only the French can pull off the cross-over thing. Act, sing? Sing, act? Mais oui, they're all at it. Somehow they can get away with it, possibly because French rock & pop is so ludicrous it doesn't really matter. But the rest? Forget it. Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Madonna, Sting ..... need I go on?

Still, Mr Robbins received a standing ovation from the devotees, who then clamoured to buy the CD on sale at the back of the church. The male midlife crisis may be a bit of a cliche but cliches come from truisms and I don't think it's a coincidence that at 52, and newly single, Tim has decided to fulfill his dreams of rock stardom. Apparently, wielding a guitar and reaching for the mic is now as popular as sports cars, motorbikes, leather trousers and shagging the secretary when men hit that certain age. And why not unleash your inner Bono? It's certainly a lot safer than hurtling down the Dorking Bypass on your Suzuki. However, not everyone needs to immortalise themselves on the front of a T-shirt...

Top tip: Winter's back and so is Nigella ...... stay home and watch food porn, Thursdays, BBC2, 8pm