It was back to Fiveways and Kate Osborne's for cake and a look at her lovely watercolours (her cards are also a bargain – stock up for the coming year!), this year featuring hens. On the way to Sylph's I decided to take a diversion up to 25 Florence Road .

Anna Thorell 's spacious house is a stark contrast to most of the other Open Houses. It contains mainly conceptual art, and I couldn't see any price tags or clutter, such as cards or cakes. It was just the work, simply displayed, with explanatory printed notes nearby. As I was too busy trying not to drip rainwater onto the pristine floor I didn't make my own notes, but after a while it dawned on me that there was a theme – evolution. Shirley Chubb's pieces on Darwin dominate – arrays of images, each with its own lens of glass. Bruce Williams, of Kiss Wall fame, had a pair of pictures comparing the eyes of a baby and a 100-year old, as well as videos. Kate Hammersley had a huge drawing and some photo pieces inspired by the Booth Museum , and outside Guy Holder's life-size mutated pigeons stood motionless in the rain. Down in the greenhouse were Anna's own crop of genetically-modified ceramics - a true site-specific installation. And there are not many of those in the Festival. By the time I got down to Sylph's it was the Fiveways closing time of 5pm and all the cake was gone...
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