The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
My Saturday
The new Countdown host, 76, on hiking with her girl gang, generous entertaining and buying a boy-racer car
Anne Robinson on Countdown, lively debate and dog walking with friends
7am If the grandsons, Hudson, 12, and Parker, 11, are here, I’m up early, otherwise I have a bit of a lie-in. I don’t have breakfast but have a Nespresso with cream.
10.30am I walk with three girlfriends – I call them the FTSE
100 as they are city slickers. I meet them halfway in the valley and then we all walk back to mine. [Anne lives near Burford in the Cotswolds.] I wear shorts, joggers, something from Sweaty Betty or Patagonia, and walking boots or trainers .Mydog Hattie, a working cocker spaniel, comes along too. 12pm When we come back, we have sausages and carrot cake. Then it’s time for the clever girls’ debate. We can talk about everything, from the inadequacies of diversity on public boards to what is the best fridge. 12.30pm The partners come to pick the girls up. No one is allowed to disturb me because I have my greatest pleasure of the day, which is the Saturday newspapers. 2.30pm I have a little siesta. I do Pilates twice a week, run and do weights, so Saturday is pretty leisurely. I’ve just done the first 15 Countdown shows – that’s three days’ recording.
It’s quite a hungry horse. Between shows is a 10- to 15-minute turnaround and change of outfit. For about 13 months of lockdown, my daughter Emma, grandsons and son-in-law Liam were here. It was very unexpected and very rewarding. And for the first lockdown the weather was fantastic so there was cricket, tennis, badminton, football.
7pm I’m a very decent cook but these days I put my feet up. I have a housekeeper who lives in a cottage in the grounds. Before anyone gets puritanical,
I don’t have a villa in the south of France or a Lamborghini! Dinner would be something like fresh asparagus and local meat from the brilliant butcher’s in Burford. I gave up alcohol 42 years ago. I drank far too much, but am quite taken with San Pellegrino fruit drinks. I come from a long line of wild alcoholic Irish wolves, so when there are guests there’s masses of food on the table. 10pm I might watch TV. I thought Pursuit of Love was fabulous – Nancy Mitford would probably have been delighted with it.
Midnight Before bed I might have a long bath, probably do a crossword or read.
Anne Robinson presents Countdown from Monday at 2.10pm on Channel 4