My new book is called THE TEASHOP ON THE CORNER and I hope that the teashop in question conjures up one of those places which is like a bubble, a world away from real life with all its trials and pressures.

Here’s a list of my top five comforting places to be, outside of my own home – places to go where I truly feel relaxed.

1 – My first choice has to a ship.  I’m a great cruiser and escape from ‘real life’ is easy when you’re adrift on the sea.  It’s the only place where I don’t give a toss what time it is and what day it is or what’s on the news because it doesn’t matter.   On a ship I let myself have the freedom to bend the rules.  If it’s eleven am and I feel like a glass of ice wine… I’ll have one.  If I want to nod off in the afternoon stretched out in the sun, I can do.  Plus calories do not exist on the sea.  I am oblivious to all the horrid news back home because the boundaries of my world extend to the walls of the ship and no further for two glorious weeks.  There is no better battery charger for me than a cruise.

2 – I LOVE teashops.  If I wasn’t a novelist, I would have been the owner of the sweetest, quaintest old-fashioned tea-shop imaginable.  And I still might buy one.  There is a lovely little teashop in a village up the road – The Potting Shed in Silkstone, which turns up as the Maltstone Garden Centre café in my books.  I love sitting at the window and watching the ducks and geese swimming up the stream which the café overlooks.  Cake, I find, is very good for relaxing.  It should be on prescription.

3 – One of my favourite places to chill is in Venice – especially at night when all the crowds have gone.  Last year we discovered a restaurant next to the theatre which sells the most gorgeous lobster and pasta and is a fabulous place for sitting and people-watching.   There is something about dining al fresco on a balmy evening that is divine.

4 – One of my favourite pastimes is reading (surprise surprise).  I love to absorb myself in a book and drift off to another place.  I do love the sea, but I find sitting on a beach a tad boring, but a good book changes that.  Lassi beach in Cefalonia was made for me.  There I can dip in the most gorgeous sea, get in a few rays and then pull the parasol over and jump into a good book (I like gritty crime novels, in case you’re asking).  Reading on a beach, picking at a Greek salad, sipping on a Pina Colada… makes me want to shout out ‘This is the Life.’

5 – Not far behind my love of books is my love of films.  I just like stories.  Every week my other half and myself tootle off to Cineworld in Sheffield and if we’re lucky will catch a 3D blockbuster on the Imax.  Losing myself in a good story – whether I’m reading it or watching it – is a joy for me.  When people write to me and say that one of my books has taken them away to another gentler place, I know what they mean because that’s exactly what a good story does for me too.  One day I’ll have my own cinema with huge puffy seats and a popcorn machine.  The word ‘comfort’ won’t even cover it!

Milly Johnson has written a Venice-set story for SUNLOUNGER 2 entitled You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.