Recently I spent a weekend with my amazing niece and because we hadn’t seen each other for ages, I treated us to a lovely place in Derbyshire – and taught her another thing.

The place was the kind of pub with rooms that all pubs with rooms should be – nicely done rooms, great staff, very good food, a busy bar with walkers, family gatherings and a carpet of dogs.

So, we relished the comfy beds, she got a lot of use out of the roll top bath, and we ignored the rule that you can’t eat chips on consecutive days.

We successfully charity shopped – who knew that either of use needed a nest of 1960s plastic tables or a ski jacket when no skiing was on the horizon – mind you its cold up north.

The rest of this weekend is between me and my lovely niece – what we talked about, her extraordinarily thoughtful takes on issues personal and political, bigger breakfasts than we had planned, why we laughed, what she is thinking of doing, what made her eyes widen when I told her about my past. ( In my defence, she did ask.)

I’d like to claim that as her aunt I have taught her valuable stuff about how to live life, what I have learned and could pass on to her but actually it boils down to two things she has already taken to heart, and one which I taught her this weekend.

My niece is the only one of my nearest and dearest who does not need nagging into drinking enough water during the day. 

Water drinking is an aunt/niece badge of honour and we compare notes about how annoying it is to try and get people we care for to do more than take an occasional sip of the liquid of life.

Now, we can talk about that for a long time but we won’t bore the rest of you – except to say a pint of water – just that lovely stuff from the tap – would do you the power of good and no coffee/tea/coke/ginger beer is not the same thing. Actually.

It didn’t stop us drinking wine, but we did have large water chasers. Just saying.

The second life lesson I taught her was something I also taught her early on in life and another thing which has stuck.

There is something very good about a bacon sandwich made with pesto and a really good in season tomato.

So, before you sneer and reach for ketchup of brown sauce, give it a try.

You can toast the bread or not, up to you.

Butter on one slice, pesto on the other. Thinly sliced tomato, crispy bacon. And you are done.

The third lesson in life came this weekend when my amazing niece was shown, took it to her heart and relished, the delight of chips dipped in peppercorn sauce.

It would be great to be able to say that I had taught her to appreciate herself as much as I do, that I had given her life skills to navigate her way through life with an inner happiness, or a love of amazing challenges or just remembering me in a good way, but a couple of tasty ways to eat and appreciation of a large drink of water will have to do.

She will more than manage the rest of her life on her own.