Norman Hartnell, Victor Stiebel, Zandra Rhodes, Catherine Walker, Vivienne Westwood...it was just like that scene from Sex and the City where Carrie tries on all the stunning wedding dresses by amazing designers (though unfortunately we weren't allowed to tries these dresses on).

From red carpet glamour to catwalk showstoppers, this new exhibition displays the best of British Ballgowns since the 50s, and it is truly a feast for the eyes.

There is something quintessentially British about creating sumptuous ballgowns to wear to debutante balls and dazzling dances. As I walked around the gallery, eyes passing from one beautiful piece to another, I imagined all the glamorous young ladies about town from the past that might have worn them and what fabulous events they went to.

Everyone in the village looks a bit fed up. We roll our eyes ruefully at each other and try not to talk about the weather and then talk about the weather because it’s all one can talk about. It is five degrees centigrade as I write this. Five. In the middle of May. I actually stood with my mare for about half an hour this morning debating whether to take her rug off or not. The wind was whipping down off the mountain, and, although she does have a good stand of trees for shelter, it is a wide open space, and a lot of weather.

She dozed patiently as I counted the pros and cons. The thing is, horses don’t really like wearing rugs that much; they don’t go about in the wild wearing something developed from the kind of fabric people climb Everest in. (After thirty years of being away from horses, I am quite obsessed with the new rug technology, and bore everyone with it most days. ‘Oh,’ I say, ‘in my day we just had a New Zealand rug, sheet of green canvas with two straps, and that was it.’ I cannot believe that at the age of forty-five I have started using the phrase ‘In my day’.)

On the other hand, I could not bear the thought of her shivering in the absurd cold. She was clipped in March, so her coat is very short; all the protective woolliness of winter is gone. In the end, I decided to let her go unrugged, so she can stretch and roll and feel the air on her back. There are so many funny things I discover as I return to things equine: one of them is that people get really cross about rugs. Apparently, some of them will not put a horse in a rug even in a blizzard. I do not really understand why this causes so much foot-stomping, but apparently it is a thing. (My new favourite place is the forum section of the Horse and Hound website, where I find the rug debate rages with no quarter given, although in a very genteel Horse and Hound sort of way.)

Regular readers will know that I thought a great deal of Silk,

With the new series starting tonight, I thought today might be a good day to have a chat with the formidable (and fun) Frances Barber, who plays formidable (and fun) new character Caroline Warwick QC.

For the last two and a half months, we’ve all been living with my parents, while we have a kitchen extension built.

At first it was a bit tricky, a bit of a culture shock. It felt like camping, we didn’t know where anything was, couldn’t seem to get anything done. My parents’ house is large, chaotic, a bit ramshackle and curling at the edges. My mother believes very strongly that unless something is utterly broken and beyond repair, buying a replacement is morally outrageous. I, on the other hand, give lorry-loads of stuff to charity for such crimes as being “slightly the wrong colour” or “a bit annoying to look at”.

The huge benefit of living here, of course, is that the house is full of toys and its ramshackle nature means that Kitty can make a terrible mess and no-one cares. The other major plus is how many people there are here, all the time; my mum, dad, my cousin, (who rents out a room upstairs), my sister who comes here most mornings with her two and a half year-old and my other sister who sometimes turns up with her three boys under 5. There’s always someone around to talk to or play with. Any evening that my husband and I want to go out, we can because there’s someone to watch the monitor for a few hours.

I don't often make a point of listening to the 15 Minute Drama that features at the end of each edition of Woman's Hour. Quite often, I'll catch the Monday instalment, resolve to listen to the rest of the week and then forget all about it. This week, there was no chance of that. Not A Love Story by Shelagh Stephenson was all about a young woman's rape ordeal. It showed brilliantly how the attack itself is only the start of the horror, and chronicled the woman's progress through the justice system, in the face of family and supposed friends who wanted her to drop the charges. I remained gripped throughout, and recommend that you listen to it before it falls off the iPlayer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qy2s

Sean and Beverly Lincoln, the writers at the heart of Episodes, would barely give this show’s premise a second glance.

Bickering couple? Check.

Fish-out-of water scenario? Check.

Stephen Jones said: “If a woman wears a hat…she always has the door held open for her."

So when I learnt that Peter Jones was to hold an exclusive evening with milliner to the royals, Vivien Sheriff, to mark the opening of their new Hat Academy, I grabbed my hat and set off to their Sloane Square department store.

Vivien Sheriff started making a business out of hats 7 years ago and since then her business has gone from strength to strength. In fact, Vivien made more pieces for the Royal wedding last year than any other milliner and made the hat Kate Middleton wore for her first royal engagement; a service of dedication for a new RNLI lifeboat in Anglesey.

Rich, meaty ragù is a delight in the depths of winter - and with the weather behaving more like March than May this dish will warm up a chilly evening a treat.

I should give you fair warning: I am going to talk about china patterns. Really, if all you can think of is the French election and what is happening in Greece, I advise you to look away now.

A new thing I have discovered is that when I am having a complicated or unsettled day, I soothe myself by shopping for vintage china on Ebay. I have developed an urgent passion for delightful old plates. I like the crazing on them, the faint wearing of the pattern; new plates suddenly look flamboyant and vulgar. The searching is not just random browsing, but quite discrete and acutely focussed. I like, I discover, things from about 1870 to 1940. I do not want pointless articles such as trios (a tea cup with saucer and side plate), which are very popular. I want proper utilitarian soup bowls, pudding plates and dining plates. I may stretch as far as a platter or a tureen if I am in whimsical mood.

None of this is of any intrinsic interest. Middle-aged woman has Ebay habit, big whoop. But I am always riveted by those activities which make you reconsider small, taken for granted things. The china habit has been making me think about the mysteries of taste. Everyone agrees that taste is subjective, and probably comes from cultural influences. I could not tell you how exactly it is formed, or when, or why it may suddenly change, or which part of the brain it is connected with, or why it dies so hard. I find it fascinating that it may be at its most dogmatic around the most minute and completely trivial matters. (I hear the voice of my younger revolutionary self: how can you ponder china patterns when the world is so oppressed?)

Other than a cheeky gin and tonic, handbags are another of my vices. There is nothing quite like a new handbag to make these miserable days of late seem a lot brighter - and stylish!

So you can imagine my excitement at the opening of an exhibition by Hermès celebrating its 175th year!