joys Oh, the of an alfresco celebration

As we all now take the first steps out of social hibernation, Bake Off’s Prue Leith says she simply can’t wait...

WhAT I’ve missed most, I think, over the past year, is eating outside with family and friends. my long life has been punctuated with picnics, barbecues, cocktails and parties on lawns, terraces, at the beach, in the park, half-way up a mountain or in the woods. I can’t wait to get back to some of that.

Just to sit on the terrace with my brother and his wife, drink in one hand, something delicious in the other, will feel like freedom at last. And I know, come June, we will be desperate to have a summer garden party to make up for all the things we’ve missed — our birthdays, moving house, easter and Christmas, our annual family sports day.

I don’t miss London, posh parties and smart restaurants, but I do really miss extended family life.

we’ve just moved from a house where we could sit 20 under a pergola. when we built it my husband was sceptical. ‘how many times will we ever get to use it? we could fly all our friends to the South of France for lunch for the amount of money this thing is costing.’

And it’s true that at least once a year, everyone had to grab their plate and make a dash for shelter, but far more often we’d sit around that table and still be there, none too sober, at 4pm — just in time for tea on the lawn.

Sadly, I couldn’t uproot the vine-covered pergola when we moved, but I’ve brought the barbecue to the new house, and who doesn’t love a barbecue?

I think I must have planned a big family barbecue three times over the past year and had to cancel them all.

Somehow, lighting the beast doesn’t seem worth it for two. maybe at easter, we’ll be able to have a small family one. I dream of lamb steaks covered in rosemary and garlic.

I do hope so. Lockdown is already responsible for ruining two easter bonnet parties.

For years now, we’ve had a big easter fest where everyone in the extended family (about 25 of us) brings a straw hat and gets an hour to decorate it with spring flowers from the garden.

Last year we tried to hold the bonnet competition online, but it didn’t work. This year I haven’t the heart.

But next year, my hope is that we’ll have enough daffs in the new garden to give it a go, though I might have to supplement the flower choice with a few bunches from Tesco. In the meantime, being a caterer at heart, I can’t help planning at least a mini-fest for however many of us are allowed to meet. we’ve got a little terrace which I hope will soon cease to be swept by horizontal rain and battered by icy wind.

A friend gave me a case full of syrups and liqueurs for my birthday, so I thought inventing cocktails would be a good start. The children could do nonalcoholic ones with lurid melon or passionfruit syrup, while their parents play around with pomegranate or coconut liqueur. And I could make the monster sausage rolls that everyone loves. we can dream, no?

Any outdoor eating is a pleasure for me. my earliest gastronomic memory is of my nanny feeding my two brothers and me marie biscuits on the beach. She would open the packet, butter the top biscuit, sprinkle it with hundreds and thousands and hand it out, repeating this until all the biccies were gone. Such a treat!

my idea of heaven is a picnic. A proper picnic, on a rug — or a log — not at a table in a posh car park with a Fortnum hamper and a butler.

Unpacking a picnic is such a pleasure, like unwrapping lovely surprises. And food tastes so good after a long walk, swim or a ride. I love the fact that for once no one minds if children won’t sit still. They can run about between eating their sarnies and pud.

one annual event I bullied my long-suffering late husband into was a summer picnic jaunt with our oldest friends, Peter and Jill Parker. Jill loved picnics, as do I. Peter was neutral on the subject and my husband loathed them. Jill and I would take it in turns to make the picnic, the other supplying the drinks. we’d choose some stately home or castle to visit, to be followed by a picnic with a view.

we had memorable visits and wonderful picnics, though finding the view often took a while. But one year when it was raining and my husband was driving, he suddenly swung into Le manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Raymond Blanc’s two michelinstar restaurant in oxfordshire. he’d booked lunch.

‘what do you mean? That’s not a picnic!’ I protested. ‘Yes, it is,’ he said. ‘The dining room is a conservatory. That’s my sort of picnic.’

my second husband John and I have had a good lockdown but, oh, I do long for a good few months of outside conviviality.

Drinks on the terrace, barbecues in the garden, picnics — and the sound of children, yelling with excitement, not fury.