It's one thing to fall in love with a picture in the national gallery - it's another to be able to afford one. Lacking the readily available millions, I decided to paint myself a reproduction. Not picture-perfect as we had to do so many years ago at university, more just my interpretation of Askeli Gallen-Kallela's Lake Kietele.

In some ways it's like looking back in time - me painting the reflection of the clouds on a lake I've never seen on a day 100 years ago that will never be again. Below is my copy :) Click here to see the original.

One of the perks of my job is an occasional fancy after-work event that I am invited to. This time it was the opening night of the Anselm Kiefer exhibition at the Royal Academy.

I wasn't that familiar with his work, and so went in with an open mind - found it quite astonishing, the sheer number of large scale pieces on display; the largest and most heavy sculpture ever shown in third space.

The subject matter was similarly large and heavy - born in the ashes of 1945 Germany, the artist seems to have dedicated his entire body of work to ensuring the atrocities that took place are forgotton by none. A room full of pictures juxtaposing the nazi salute against Greek figures of heroism, the eagle wings lifting from a pile of smouldering books, a serpent slithering out from the rubble.

Rubble is in fact a good word to describe the emotive range of many paintings, as he uses anything from lead, to diamonds to straw and acrylic to give depth and texture to his work, layering them onto a canvas in a sort of reverse-archaeology. The closer you stand, it's as if a cracked muddy river bed has been plastered onto the wall, and yet as you step further back a stunningly detailed forest will emerge, or a looming empty perspective of national socialist architecture. fascinating.

Morris dancing - something I'd only read about in books before I moved to the UK. I met one of the dancers through an art class, and so went along to watch his team, the Wild Hunt (www.wildhunt.org.uk) dancing in the George Inn, Southwark.
The dancers were dressed in black rags with dark masks on, with one only dressed in green, representing summer. In all, they did 4 dances, complete with holly-wood sticks and bells on their legs. My favourite was a 3 minute dance describing both the beginning and ending of the world, to the music of flutes, drums and accordions. It was the last day the green man could dance before winter. Astonishingly beautiful and artfully pagan. What fun to watch the heart of the countryside dancing on the cobbled streets of London.