When I first went to Spain as an adult I was completely exhausted and overwhelmed by the demands of my work.

I had decided I just couldn’t cope with the film/media industry anymore, so when I saw a tiny advert in the back of Time Out magazine I jumped at the chance to escape it all and booked a month of Spanish lessons in a small coastal town called Conil in Andalucia.

Little did I know that once I’d recovered, which took about a week - I would go on to fall madly in love with a girl and with Spain, or Spanishness to be more accurate.

The lifestyle we adopted was to die for. In essence, we got up at noon did a bit of Spanish at the Escuela, went to the beach. for a few hours then had a siesta. Rested up, by 10pm we headed out to pretty well the same nightclub every night until 3 o’clock in the morning.

Now whenever I play the Gypsy Kings or anything similar I often have a cathartic bawl because Spain has done something permanent to me. It has something that Britain doesn’t - its a greater wildness, a more carefree spirit and nowhere in Spain exemplifies this as much as Andalucia - so go rediscover yourself!

I think my favourite place in the world after England is India.

I first arrived in ‘Bombay’ in the early 1990s I had never been to a developing country before, and was swamped by the utterly crazy noisy loud in-your-face culture, I truly felt I was in a different world.

While I was there, I went to the slums and felt the shock everyone feels.

More recently I have made travel programs there and even did a series with Chris Evans about amateur golfers, filming at some of the poshest golf courses in the country. I’ve been back to the slums and seen them in a different light as quite amazing communities - which actually function better in some ways than middle-class western communities with all their high fences, electric gates and child-minders

This country is increasingly full of stark contrast and one thing that can’t beat is just to have lunch in one of the regular cafés where the locals eat. Somebody once told me “follow the herd and you will find good grazing” so the busier the place, the better.

I went to one in South India where we ate of banana leaves, using only our hands I will never forget the freshness of the flavours or the noise!

I never thought I’d come to love this place.

But I must admit when we arrived from London on a dark wet night followed by a removal van from Brixton, I had no idea it would become our home.

It took me a long time to adjust to being away from London and media life , but once I wandered out into the glorious countryside that surrounds the town - and got an allotment, I began to discover a whole new side to the place

When we bought a house, little did we know that the 14 acres acres that ajoined it and a quarter of a mile of river Eden a stone’s throw away would become ours.

It’s land formally owned by the sewage works who no longer needed it after the works closed many years ago. So it was scruffy when we bought and bit by bit, with minimal resources, we are turning it into a wonderful place to walk and camp

I have come to love Edenbridge, not because it is always lovable because my heart has just decided that it wants to see this town thrive, and I believe it will be famous in time for all the right reasons.

During freshers week at Aberdeen University, I bumped into this guy called Ally - Barbour jacket, motorcycling gauntlets, peaked cap and tatty brogues - little did I know he would become a friend for life.

His father‘s family owned a ginormous country pile on the west coast of Scotland, near Portpatrick called ‘Dunskey Estate’.

I had the joy of staying there with the family and we went many times whilst at university - to shoot to eat, to play golf and snooker and drink whiskey!

More, recently, he and his talented Vietnamese-American wife Anne, having have now taken over the house, and renovated it.

It is now stunning five star experience - still Scottish but with an Asian twist.

When I was a single guy and wishing I wasn’t, a lovely family from Lancashire called the Nelsons used to invite me to Cornwall for long walking weeks.

We would walk till we dropped then huddle in a pub and drink pints of Doombar to take away the pain.

When I had first met Esther in my new found church - but not yet dated her - I remember being in Cornwall, standing at Logans Rock and praying this woman would one day be my wife. It worked!

It was amazing to go back 15 years later now, at last, with my own family and remember those days of longing and heart-ache.

So if you’re looking for a partner, head to Logan’s Rock and get praying, you never know.

One of the best things in my life at the moment is our caravan lodge up on Longridge Fell in Lancashire.

The caravan itself is pretty luxurious and the view is something else - probably 50 miles on a clear day.

My siblings and I bought it when we realised it was no longer possible to stay at my mum's house nearby - now that she is too elderly to cope with having others around for any length of time.

There’s something so relaxing about being in a place that can’t accommodate all your stuff, I might

STAY AT THE AMBLESIDE

When I was a child this was the place we seemed to go to every weekend.

My Grandpa had a house up high overlooking the lake with a boathouse full of boats. We used to motor across the lake to the yacht club where grandpa would chat with his contemporaries - all silverhaired and tweed-jacketed.

My dad and I raced ‘Flying-15 yacts’. Out boat had a yellow hull and was called ‘Pickettywitch’ - no idea why…

Those days are gone now, but I still go back to the lake to enjoy its splendour.

I have played golf virtually all my life, having been taught the game by the headmaster of my prep school - Paddy Molloy

I used to take it so seriously like pretty well everything else in my life so I got good at it but not sure I fully enjoyed it.

But a few years ago I had an epiphany and began to play what I now nickname ‘wild-golf’, You basically enjoy the swing, regardless of where the ball goes. Different metric.

My favourite place to do this is Hever Golf Club - in amongst woodlands planted as a deer hunting ground by Henry VIII and within sight of the castle where Anne Boleyn used to live.

I walk these fairways with friends belly- laughing at half of golf, but I also feel like one of the most privileged men on Earth that I have the time and resources to do this.

I recently got to play with my son Asher, his first ever round on a proper golf course.

For a father who loves golf - that was pure heaven.

She said “I want to get the pub singing”…

The Queens Arms is a quirky little pub just outside Edenbridge. When I first went it was like walking back into the 1950s with a ticking clock, a whippet, a coal fire and a few sandwiches on offer at the bar. They had Larkins bitter, and that was it.

More recently, it has bought by some aspirational owners who have really gone all out to make it attractive to locals, farmers, woodsman and folk of all ages. It’s a great place to have a pint and get into conversation with people you’ve only just met

One day, we got chatting to the landlady about music and she opened the door to us to come in with our hotch-potch band of musicians, and we are now regulars. We’re helping everyone in the pub to unleash their inner singer and join us for a riff or two of Coldplay, Lady Gaga, Hillsong and The Clash.

It is so much fun being half cut and singing a song you love with an entire pub doing the backing vocals.