Warm summer nights should be spent in the high grass in Hampstead Heath above the ponds. For midsummer bring herring, snaps and songs and stay until sunrise!

A gift from Kyoto - a beautiful hidden Japanese garden in Holland Park 

Every year I take my 25 year old mini on the London to Brighton run. The views from the start line are always worth the 4AM wake-up.

I’m not sure what I like best about this deli: the speck which was so good that I ‘accidentally’ ate the whole package of it before I got home, or the fact the staff are always so friendly even when I ask for my order in my terribly rusty Italian.

You might think the Tate Britain is the less interesting of the two London outposts: full of crusty oil paintings and pensioners on day-trips, but you’d be wrong. Not only is the building a delicious warren of interconnecting rooms, each more beautiful than the last, but it also houses a collection of pre-Raphelite works that has me in tears of awe every time I swing by.