Both auction houses and art and antiques fairs are a great place to gain knowledge and see rare treasures before they are sold into a private collection and disappear from public view. Happy hunting.

January in London with its gruesome cold and darkness, gives way to the warmth and watery generosity of Miami. I arrived in Florida on what was essentially a dealers charter flight. Almost every dealer I know was on board. Fat cats up front. Healthy cats in premium and skinny cats in the back.

Following a manic day of moving pieces of furniture left and right, backwards and forwards, and generally wasting time, we finally arrived at an arran...

This Monday was one of those big Mondays. You know the ones which are expected and you feel slightly nervous about and the result is uncertain. Well it was one of those. Monday was Nazy Vassegh's first day. Who is she, you ask?

Masterpiece is producing an exciting new short magazine to both review and preview the fair and I was cycling around visiting exhibitors in Kensington Church Street when the cover page was emailed through. I stopped, downloaded it and did not quite love it.

I cannot stop. Over Christmas I made a few purchases in Norfolk and they arrived in London brought by the legendary JJ. He has been driving his van from Norwich to London for around 30 years, maybe longer.

And the best cure for a night on the tiles? Well, food takes the place of tiredness and aspirin and caffeine soften these dehydrated and shrunk meninges that are the pain we feel in our heads.

These three fairs happen together four times a year and they are an extraordinary gathering. From across Europe they come- Italians, Germans, and Spanish Portuguese. Even down from Scandinavia.

I am waiting for Nicola (the fair director) from Masterpiece. We are heading to Amsterdam for the day to visit PAN. It is the annual fair for the Dutch trade. It takes place at a soulless exhibition centre outside the city called RAI.

Flying through fog to land at Heathrow from Madrid, I was dazzled by a moment's cloud break. The twinkling expanse of the city stretched out before me; the London eye, the Winter Wonderland, Hyde Park.