Clare Teal: A case or two (or three) of wine, swimming and song

Fabulous days. most of which were spent walking, cooking and er… drinking. I know it's not perhaps the most glamorous sounding vacation but if the shoe fits…

We stayed a stone's throw from Padstow (that's if you've got very strong, long arms) four miles by car, 13 by foot. Our rented apartment had a fantastic stereo with excellent speakers in every room – total heaven!

I'll be honest living as we do in a flat and actually liking our neighbours (well, most of them) has certainly played a huge role in our attempt to keep "noise" to a respectable level.

But there is surely no greater printable joy than playing music you absolutely love, at a pleasing/deafening level through very good quality gear with the sun shining and the wine flowing.

Miles Davis, Ahmad Jamal, Ella, Anita O'Day, Glenn Medeiros... need I go on? I occasionally peppered the list with a bit of Radiohead and other modernists as Muddy was threatening drastic action involving scissors and my new and precious extremely high-spec aux lead, which, as I had forgotten to pack one, arrived by post on day three.

For those of you reading in black and white, an aux lead is what connects an iPod to a stereo.

We covered between 8-10 miles of beautiful coastline a day, the equivalent of hiking from Bath to Wolverhampton but so much more enjoyable.

On a whim, we decided to treat ourselves to three different cases of what were described as "very nice wine," only to discover that two of the three were lying!

Thankfully, we had a good stock of gin in reserve.

Day five and we strolled 15 miles to Newquay to buy coriander and a wetsuit.

I got sunburnt (stupid girl) so the next day I just sat in my beach tent and continued work on the new show, which we will be launching at Ronnie Scott's on the week beginning October 4.