This has been a miserable week. Our beloved cat, Edith - named after the sister of King Harold Godwinsson, and an aptly regal and elegant pet - has vanished. Of course, she may still be alive, but we have reached the stage now where we suspect the worst. Despite all the desperate ringing around local vets and all the pathetic posters we have put up, long since bedraggled with the rain, it looks as though Harold, her brother, is now an only cat.

At least yesterday gave me and Sadie, my wife, the chance to get out and cheer ourselves up a bit. Most evenings this week we have spent slumped miserably in front of the TV, watching thoroughly depressing programmes full of mayhem and calamity - Red Riding, The Wire, the news. Yesterday, however, was the opening of a wonderful new gallery at the British Museum, devoted to the art and culture of medieval Europe. It is small - nothing on the scale of the Musée de Cluny in Paris, or the V&A here in London - but perfectly formed. In fact, I can't imagine a richer or more easily digestible introduction to the subject. Sadie's favourite piece was a 14th century carving of Saint Margaret, a virtuous virgin who was no sooner swallowed by a dragon than she invoked the name of the cross, and was promptly catapulted out through the monster's stomach: she was subsequently installed as the patron saint of midwives (Sadie is training to be a midwife, athough she has never been swallowed by a dragon). My own favorite was a ring worn by Richard Coeur de Lion: partly because it always sends shivers down my spine to see something that actually had contact with the touch of a near-legendary figure, and partly because its seal was a classical image of Mercury, an unexpected blending of the ancient world with the medieval.

There was also a very effective and amusing speech from David Cameron, who opened the exhibition (the British Museum is clearly taking an educated punt on who is going to win the next election). Amid all the jokes delivered with the fluency and poise that an education at Eton presumably helps to give you, there was also a commitment to reinstate the primacy of narrative history in schools. Hurray! Let's hope he sticks to it. I'm obviously going to have to vote Conservative...