I have been dithering for years about when to stop judging The Great British Bake Off. When I joined nine years ago, I thought, since I was in my mid-seventies, that I’d be lucky to manage two years. At that age, my mother was deaf as a post and away with the fairies, believing her son was her father and that her cat was the one she’d had 40 years before. But my marbles stayed more or less in place and there seemed no good reason to give up a job I loved. Finally, though, the desire to work less and play more got to me. Bake Off and its offshoots such as The Great American Baking Show and even the Christmas specials are all filmed in the summer, which has meant I could never have a summer holiday.

So, I finally jumped. What triggered my decision was that I’ve just had the best holiday in my long life. In Madagascar, on the tiny tropical island of Nosy Komba, with a flat blue sea with nothing on it: no jet skis, no music, no bars. Just a lone canoe and a single fisherman with a handline or hoisting a sail to drift slowly along. But that’s in the southern hemisphere – and while it’s great for escaping........

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