The secret's out! I've spent much of the last year working at home in the glorious Cotswold countryside surrounding Stroud, Gloucestershire, recently named by the Sunday Times as the best place to live in Britain.

At some point in the working day, usually at the end of it, I put on my walking boots and head out across acres of beautiful National Trust common to drink in the fabulous views across the steep wooded valleys that centre on the town, sometimes dropping down into them and picking up the towpath along the canal we're restoring.