You have to accept ageing gracefully – it’s the one battle you can’t win. I’ve never understood this obsession with cosmetic surgery and hair dying. You’re not fooling anybody. You may as well enjoy the life you have and not try to recapture something that is gone for ever.

My partner and I walk around Edinburgh a lot. If the weather is inclement – which occasionally it is – I’ll go to the cellar and listen to an audiobook as I march along on my treadmill.

I do tend to be lazy. I spend a lot of time doing nothing constructive, but this is when my writing brain does its work. Some might also say I spend too long gaming. I like ones that require a bit of thought, not random shoot ’em ups.

I probably have too great an appetite for cheese. I was once asked what my superpower was and I said the ability to make an infinite quantity of cheese disappear.

I was lucky to grow up in a household where I had a sense of being equal to anyone. When I went to Oxford there were people from a similar background who were a bit chippy. I felt none of that. It’s given me a sense of ‘You’ve worked hard, you’ve got here, that’s fine.’ That attitude is a huge advantage in life.

The crime fiction world fosters great friendships and camaraderie. I’m the singer in a band with some other writers – the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers – and we do have a lot of fun.

The advice I’d give my younger self is to say just stick with it, it gets better. Not that I’d have listened.

My partner and I have made a lot of changes to the way we eat. Every Christmas we go to a clinic in Germany and fast for two weeks. My friend Jeanette Winterson kept nagging me to go until I gave in! I have type 2 diabetes so I’m trying to put that in reverse. I’m trying to live more healthily but in a sustained way.

Insidious Intent by Val McDermid is published by Sphere at £7.99