Both Plockton and the Isle of Muck in north-west Scotland are incredibly beautiful. Sadly, Plockton has been discovered by tourists because it's where they shot Hamish Macbeth.

If I'm hunting down gifts, I like to buy locally.

Success, in whatever form it takes, is a tricky thing - once you've achieved your goal, then what? Where do you aim?

With a diplomat father, for whom foreign postings were a fact of life, my siblings and I were expected to attend boarding schools in Britain.

My mother, father, stepmother and surrogate mother have all died of cancer; my best friend has got terminal cancer and at least five of my other friends have had cancer but survived it.

I spent my entire childhood living abroad because of my father's occupation, so we were on long-haul flights all the time.

In the 20 long, hungry years between my late teens and late 30s I bought in to virtually every new diet and/or exercise regime that hoved into view, particularly at this most vulnerable time for those of us prone to poor body image - a new year.