Don’t go with your gut (unless buying shoes), plan for a happy life

Unless it’s buying shoes or a house – I always go with my gut for important things – my trick to enjoying life is to always have a formula.

It’s why I can bake but would suck on MasterChef. All that improvising and whipping up prawns and chocolate and smoked butter into a heart on a plate isn’t my speed. Too anxiety-inducing. Give me a recipe, let me make a plan, I’m solid.

I love the theory put forward by septuagenarian master spy Elizabeth in Richard Osman’s fantastic The Man Who Died Twice: people are either weather forecasters or the actual weather. The forecasters never want to be caught out and always have their fingers in the air to feel which way the wind is blowing.

Those who are the weather “move as they choose, you act as you feel”, says Elizabeth. They make things happen without faffing around worrying about what those things might be.

The forecasters are constantly making plans in the background which they enact so naturally the weather people think the universe is providing – remember when we stumbled by chance on that great bar behind the fridge door in Niseko? How lucky we went to the beach bang on sunset!

Being the weather sounds more glamorous but I’m a forecaster. Laying the groundwork means when it’s go-time I can find the amount of insouciance that makes anything look ad hoc. I would never not have vodka, a wheel of brie and freezer bolognaise sauce at home, for example. Anyone drops in – very weather behaviour – I can hostess it up in ten seconds.

My A-type perfectionism came to a head when the kids were small. All three have birthdays weeks after Christmas and a massive job lot of hunting and gathering was the best approach. Shop wisely, shop once. Spend time making whirlpools in the Clark Rubber pool instead of circling Chaddy.

So a gift formula was devised. Every Christmas the Santa sacks were stuffed with something to read (Jack, Harry Potter; Felix, The Guinness Book of Records, Sadie, Luxury Hotels of the World), something to eat (scorched almonds, chocolate raspberries), something to wear for lunch (shorts and shirt, Fred Bare dress) and something to do (Lego, Nintendo, tennis racket). Plus bathers and half a dozen pairs of jocks. Done!