You don’t go to North Norfolk in winter for good weather, but we had it — vast blue skies, sunshine and a couple of wild gales. North Norfolk in summer, like the Cotswolds in which I live landlocked, mingles the horribly overcrowded with quiet spaces about which locals keep schtum. In late November it had been reclaimed by them and was half-empty. Staying in a peaceful converted barn, we were there to work but also to walk on near-deserted Holkham Beach, where Poppy the border terrier thought she had died and the sand and sea were heaven. Best, friendliest coffee shop was in Burnham Market, small, un-chic Tilly’s, which sells secondhand books for Animal Rescue and a homemade delight called Billionaire’s Shortbread, made of brownie, toffee, and milk and white chocolate. As is Normal for Norfolk, it is also calorie-free. Back in Gloucestershire I realise how much the two counties have in common. Honeypot villages, tea shops, gourmet pubs, sensible Older Women in quilted jackets with black labradors, concealed rural poverty and intermittent royals. No wonder I felt at home.
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It is bad form to talk about one’s health, but during the ten years when I drank no booze I had to explain or people assumed I was a recovering alcoholic. I have a lifelong condition called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (Masto). Mast cells are rendered unstable when challenged — by what depends on the individual. Alcohol is a common trigger and the game wasn’t worth the candle of feeling rotten so I gave it up but one immunologist said, ‘Try a glass in a year or two. These things come and go.’ I did, without luck, but in France this summer I tried again and red wine caused no reaction. White wine still destabilises the mast cells but that’s fine as I greatly prefer red and of red I prefer French and claret — Pomerol or St Emilion in a perfect world. If one glass an evening is all you drink, you can just about afford it and now I have discovered FromVineyardsDirect, I can afford it even more. The Everyman Classics maestro, David Campbell, founded FVD, which deals in the best at keen prices so I now have three cases of a superb Pomerol which haven’t quite broken the bank. Like Tilly’s of Burnham Market and quiet corners of the Cotswolds, FVD is a secret. I commend it to you now, because it won’t be for much longer.
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I love the approach to Christmas by some friends in financial meltdown. Determined to celebrate without spending much, the family has instated ‘£1 or less only, per present’ and a prize for the best-wrapped, using only free materials. Poundland to the fore then, though as that’s easy there’s a prize for the best present not bought there. Wrappings will include pheasant-feed sacks, the Financial Times and J-cloths sprinkled with glitter. Competitive fun and hilarity guaranteed. My husband is a devotee of Poundland from whence came probably the best present he ever bought me, a gadget like tiny foam headphones which clean your spectacles. His nose for their best bargains is legendary. Fifty black biros for £1, anyone?
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Charities appeal to us with every pre-Christmas post and now by email. Most are worthy but I sort through them looking for a new one, although the Salvation Army always has priority. This year I am supporting Amber, a small, increasingly vital organisation which rescues young adults who have become homeless, drug-addicted or criminal and turns them round in the direction of happier, more purposeful and fulfilling lives. In their four rehabilitation centres Amber gives motivation, encouragement, skills, training, friendship and hope. In the face of rising youth unemployment and lack of opportunity they are needed more than at any time in their history. Some wise Crown Court judges now refer offenders to Amber instead of prison. www.amber.org.
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My other charity also helps prisoners, but not only young ones and in a rather surprising way. Fine Cell Work teaches embroidery and needlepoint mainly to longer-term prisoners who produce work of the very highest standard. They accept commissions and produce a range of items to be bought from the website or at special sales round the country. I have three beautiful cushions made by inmates at Wandsworth and the name of the prisoner who sewed each is attached on a tag. You can write and thank them for their work, too. Visit www.finecellwork.co.uk, look, buy or even commission, and give a long-term prisoner a reason to keep going, an absorbing occupation for the long hours locked up and a valuable skill for the future.
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My year as a Man Booker judge being over, I am revelling in reading whatever I choose, which mainly means re-reading. Salman Rushdie’s masterpiece, Midnight’s Children, is a revelation again, a novel about a whole continent and multifarious ways of life as well as individuals. Not many writers so successfully bite off more than most can chew. I have long admired Vita Sackville-West’s The Edwardians — and why has no one adapted that for television? — but never read her poignant, delicate, wise novel All Passion Spent. Vita’s reputation as a gardener and garden-writer with a vivid love life sometimes obscures that of seriously good novelist. You could do worse than read those three books over the coming holiday, for enrichment, enjoyment, enlightenment and escaping charades.