Baroness Benjamin: ‘Pop a box of snails in the oven and it’s like you’re in France’

How do famous names spend their precious downtime? In our weekly My Saturday column, celebrities reveal their weekend virtues and vices. This week: Baroness Benjamin

9am 

My husband [film producer Keith Taylor] always brings me a cooked breakfast in bed – a cup of tea, some porridge, a boiled egg – and a little vase with a rose in it. Everyone needs a Keith, he spoils me. My new book Keep Smiling comes very much from the philosophy I passed on to my children: life is good – you have to be positive, otherwise you’ll go mad. 

10.30am 

I do some sit-ups and meditation – I’ll be 74 soon and as you get older, you need to exercise to keep your core muscles working. Then we’ll get on with our housework, which I find very therapeutic. Keith does the vacuuming, I do the bathrooms… and we love making up the bed together. It’s like a competition: who can get the pillowcases on the fastest. 

1pm 

We go down to Beckenham in Kent, where my parents are buried, to change the flowers and speak to my mum. My parents lived in Beckenham for 40 years. When they went to see the house, the neighbours sent the police to arrest us, saying black people were stealing the fittings. After that, Mum said: ‘We’re going to buy this house.’ My mum didn’t get to see me become a baroness, so I went to the cemetery where my parents are and said: ‘I’m going to claim Beckenham for you, I’m going to call myself Baroness Benjamin of Beckenham.’

2pm 

Keith and I like to sit and eat together. We love curry or a niçoise salad. Our daughter doesn’t live far away, so she might come over for snails. I’ve got at least a dozen boxes in the freezer. You just pop them in the oven for 10 minutes and you feel like you’re in France. 

3pm 

If I’ve got a busy week ahead, with speeches in the House of Lords, I’ll be working. People don’t realise how hard peers work. I really wish people realised that peers like myself are doing the best for our country, not for ourselves. The House of Lords is probably the most diverse institution I’ve ever been involved in. 

9pm 

We’ll cook dinner, and then go out dancing. We go to a private club where nobody bothers me or takes a selfie – I can just let my hair down and dance. I might have a glass of Champagne. We sit there and we feel like young lovers, people-watching and laughing. 

12am 

We get home around midnight then we go straight to bed. We go to sleep telling each other how much we love each other.

Keep Smiling by Baroness Benjamin [Macmillan Children’s Books, £12.99] is available now. To order from Telegraph Books for £7.99, call 0844 871 1515 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk