I never loved you more than on those happy autumn days

We've been at my parents' house in Thaxted all day. It was a last minute decision. When you wake up on October the second and discover it's the hottest day of the year, you have to get out and about.

I knew brother Edward and Sascha were heading up, so it felt like the perfect opportunity for an ad hoc family gathering.

The sun was so hot, but it was a strange, dusty, almost dead heat. Like the heat you'd expect to find in a desert. Dry as toast, rather Mediterranean and certainly very unlike anything I've experienced in this country. It's hotter here than it is in Rome, Athens and LA. We're practically the hottest place in the world!

We walked around the fields and everything felt wrong. Beautiful but wrong. The sun was low in the sky, so the shadows were as long as I've seen. Nathan had his top off and yet we were kicking our way through autumn leaves. The bushes were laden with sloes and juniper berries, and many of the trees were turning brown. But it felt like Spain. Hot. Utterly magical. It must have triggered the Leo The Lion fire energy inside me because I felt truly alive. We came back home and shared the first apple from one of my parents' trees; a fabulously crunchy variety with a proper kick to it. I bloomin' love the autumn!

350 years ago Pepys went to visit his cousin Peg Kite. Great name. She was the daughter of Pepys' Auntie Julian (another fabulous name) and Pepys hated her. In fact he went as far as to describe her as a slut. Steady on!

There was a trip in the afternoon to the King's Theatre to see a play called Victoria Corombona, which Pepys hated. His enjoyment of the piece was hindered greatly by really rubbish seats. 6 days ago at the Union Theatre, I knew exactly how he felt!