I ski every three years or so. I don't have the ingrained confidence that others do, but I'll happily toddle about a green or blue run.

At the beginning of my acting career, I worked for two seasons at the RSC and spent a lot of time in the Cotswolds exploring Shakespeare's countryside. It's my kind of English landscape, with its tiny villages and one-room thatched pubs.

There's something about 'Strictly Come Dancing.' Everywhere I go, people wish me good luck; cabbies toot their horns. It's lovely. I have a theory: in straitened times, there's nothing like a bit of unapologetic escapism.

I am simply not such a slave to my vanity, and I don't want to be, because as you get older you really have to start accepting the inevitable.

Whitley Bay was my first experience of the seaside. I'd buy my bucket and spade, and beach ball, and all the shops were teeming with toys. I used to spend hours on the shuggy boats.

I really enjoyed staying at an encampment at the top of a hill in the Samburu Reserve in Kenya. You reach it on a small plane; there is no electricity, no city noises and you sleep and shower under the Milky Way, with moths fluttering around a kerosene lamp, knowing that there are elephants and lions roaming free in the valley.

I can honestly say I love getting older. Then again, I never put my glasses on before looking in the mirror.