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

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.

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.

I'm lucky to have very good genes. My mother was so tiny she was almost bird-like, and my father was tall and lean. Both lived until their early 80s.

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.

I come from a strong matriarchal line. I was raised by Gypsy, her sister, Mary, and my maternal grandmother. The result of not having my father live with us meant that, when it came to understanding the opposite sex, it was like working without a map.

I have had big relationships. Three times in my life I have felt a special connection, but people talk about looking for love as if it's just like walking into a Starbucks and buying a coffee when you feel like it. It's rare, that special connection.