What makes your summer sing Fiona Cassie?

Good book: This year, I re-read The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe – the undefinable, probably unreliable, “memoir” of a fashionable Swedish doctor and Isle of Capri resident. A bestseller of the 1930s, it is very eclectic in tone and content. But the best of it is so drolly funny and tear-inducingly sad – including the accounts of caring for the idle rich of Paris and the cholera-stricken poor of Naples.

Good programme: I’ve just re-watched season one of Julia (Neon, initially on Prime/ Sky Open) in readiness for season two. Sarah Lancashire (Raquel on Coronation Street) brilliantly captures the joie de vivre and drive Julia Child needed to get her TV cookery show to air. Lots of great early 1960s fashion and bad coq au vin puns.

Good board game: Pull out Ludo when you get bored. It’s sure to have the family quickly “animated” after people realise they can gang up and block a player’s progress around the board or repeatedly send them back to home base.

Good swimming spot: Some trivia for you – do you know the North Island has three Waikawau Beaches? I knew about the first – a wild King Country beach accessed via a narrow hand-dug tunnel. But Coromandel having two – one for each coast – was new to me. I like them all, but gather the eastern Coromandel Waikawau is probably the best swimming spot if the size of the DOC campground is anything to go by.

Good feed: I headed to Knead Artisan Doughnuts in the outer burbs of New Plymouth this year for a feed. It is so good I even forgive them for calling their retro jam and cream delight a “donut”.