Winter Notebook

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.