My father was very keen on battlefields, so we’d also go up to Scotland, to see Culloden. In fact, I’ve probably visited every single battlefield in the British Isles, which I’m sure was very educational, but I moaned like mad at the time.
When I finished my A levels, I hitchhiked all over Europe with three girlfriends, not that we told our parents that, of course, or we’d never have been allowed to go; they thought we had rail cards. While I’d be horrified if any of my nieces or godchildren announced they were going to start jumping into cars with strangers, it worked out really well and it was a fantastic way to see Europe.
We hitched in pairs and, as a general rule, we’d all meet up outside the cathedral of whichever city we were heading for. There was sometimes a bit of confusion when it turned out there was more than one cathedral, but we always managed to find each other eventually. I ended up having a fling with a boy who worked at the youth hostel where we stayed in Paris. He took me busking on the Métro, singing Joni Mitchell songs, and I made so much money I was able to pay for my air fare home, which is amazing, because I’m rubbish at singing.
The first time I went abroad, it was to Crete, and I got burnt to a cinder. I’d never been exposed to heat like that before, and it was so painful I couldn’t put my jeans on for a week. I’ve never liked sunbathing since, but I do like warmth and sunshine. My ideal holiday would be a safari or looking at the rivers in Rwanda.
I adore Africa, and I’ve been to Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa, but West Africa is particularly special. A friend of mine had a house in Accra, Ghana, which I was lucky enough to visit several times, and I was always astonished by the bang of colour and noise and laughter that greets you the minute you step off the plane.
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My friend’s house was quite large, and he threw a lot of parties, but the days were mostly spent just relaxing on his veranda. We did go to the beach sometimes, but it’s not at all touristy, and Ghanaians hate swimming, so there was no pressure to strip off and strut my stuff, thank goodness.
Recently, I’ve been to a couple of places that I first went to years ago, and it’s like seeing them with different eyes. I worked in New Zealand 16 years ago and didn’t like it much at all, but I went back for a holiday in March and fell in love with the place, especially the South Island. There are fewer than four million people in the entire country, and most of them live in Wellington or Auckland, on the North Island, so the South Island is very sparsely populated.
Not so long ago, if you wanted to stay anywhere remotely lux- urious, you had to go to Queenstown, but now there are terrific little boutique hotels mushrooming everywhere. The landscape is amazing, and it alters all the time because there are so many different microclimates. You might go over a mountain and find yourself in a vineyard, sweltering in the baking heat of the wine region, then travel a little way in another direction and find you’re suddenly freezing cold and it’s pouring with rain. There are glaciers,alpine mountains, sandy beaches — it’s quite extraordinary.
The best holiday I’ve ever had was when my best girlfriend and I flew to San Francisco, where we hired a car and drove all the way down the Pacific Coast Highway to LA, which runs along the most staggeringly beautiful coastline.
We didn’t have a particular plan — we just stopped off at places we liked the look of, such as Big Sur and Carmel. On the way back, we spent a couple of days in Las Vegas, which was fantastic. All the hotels have themes, and we stayed at the Luxor hotel, which is shaped like a pyramid.
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I really got into gambling in a big way, and ended up playing blackjack with some pretty scary people, but it was a riot.
Then we drove off into the desert, to Death Valley. It was the ultimate Thelma & Louise experience, driving along, pleasing ourselves, having the odd little liaison here and there. Everyone should have a holiday like that once in their life.