How to create the ultimate summer break

The ultimate beach holiday by Sandi Toksvig, author and presenter

I have a small wooden fishing boat on my desk. I keep it there to remind me when I am working that I once had a perfect day. It was summer and I was on my honeymoon. We had headed north taking the ferry from Newcastle to the Norwegian fishing port of Bergen. Keen to get up into the Arctic Circle we meandered our way past endless fjords, taking many ferries towards the Lofoten Islands. We ran out of superlatives for the stark landscape, delighting in the absence of too many other tourists. At last we arrived in the tiny village of Henningsvær and checked into a red hut that had once been a fisherman’s cottage. We were thrilled by its simplicity. There was no internet, no mobile signal, just a small wooden house lying beside the turquoise waters.

A little motorboat was at our disposal and we headed out across waters so clear that you could see the fish below. The weather was warm and the summer light had a clarity to it which made us feel as though our eyesight had been renewed. We could almost have imagined that an announcement had been made heralding our arrival for at that moment harbour porpoises appeared across our bow, the bright beaks of puffins coloured every vista and sea eagles swooped through the blue sky.

We moored at an old wooden dock and went for lunch at Fiskekrogen, a local restaurant where the meal seemed to have leapt fresh from the sea. It was perfect. Everything that day was perfect and we bought the small souvenir boat so that we would always remember. If I am tired, I close my eyes and imagine those breathtaking Arctic seas on a calm summer day and I can’t help but smile.
Sandi Toksvig can be heard regularly on Radio 4

The ultimate summer playlist by Norman Jay, DJ

1 Here Comes the Sun by Nina Simone
2 Everybody Loves the Sunshine by Roy Ayers/Ramp
3 Tin Soldier by The Small Faces
4 Song for Everyman by Rotary Connection
5 Summer Madness by Kool the Gang
6 Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding
7 Wichita Lineman by Ray Charles
8 Handbags and Gladrags by Chris Farlowe
9 The Wind Cries Mary by Jimi Hendrix
10 Redemption Song by Bob Marley

The ultimate barbecue recipe by Lorraine Pascale, cookery writer and presenter

Sticky Asian barbecue chicken: nothing says barbecue to me more than getting stuck into delicious, sticky, tender chicken wings. You can’t beat the mix of sweet and smoky flavours. Serves 4.

mixed chicken wings and drumsticks 800g
tomato ketchup 6 squidges
balsamic vinegar 3 tbsp
soy sauce 3 tbsp
Chinese five-spice 2 tbsp
honey 2 squidges
garlic clove 1
few sprigs of fresh thyme
sunflower oil

Scatter the chicken pieces in a large roasting tin or dish. Put the tomato ketchup, vinegar, soy sauce, five-spice and honey in a small bowl. Peel and finely chop the garlic and mix with the thyme leaves, salt, pepper and a drizzle of oil. Give everything a good stir and pour it over the chicken. Toss everything about to coat evenly, then settle the pieces into a single layer and leave to marinate for as long as you can. Then place on the grill until cooked through.
Lorraine Pascal’s Fast, Fresh and Easy Food is published by HarperCollins at £20. To order a copy for £16, with free UK pp, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846

The ultimate summer fizz by David Williams, wine writer

Just as nothing beats a really good English summer day, so good English wine has a charm all its own. The best, of which there seem to be more each year, tend to be sparkling, made in the same way and from the same grape varieties as champagne, and sharing some of the classic patisserie-shop aromas, but with a distinctive, almost piercing brightness that is utterly refreshing with end-of-the-pier fish and chips. The ever-excellent Ridgeview‘s house blend, which costs £24.95 and is available from quality stockists across the country, is one of my favourites – the one I’d take on a picnic, imagining myself part of the Bloomsbury set on their beloved South Downs, where the grapes for this wine are grown.

The ultimate summer walk by Alain de Botton, philosopher

Shore things: the path through marram grass by Holme-next-the-Sea in north Norfolk. Photograph: Alamy

My favourite coastal walk is in north Norfolk, between Wells-next-the-Sea and Brancaster. You can follow the coastline through a variety of changes of mood, from gaudy seaside amusements to endless mysterious marshland to inviting golden beach. One feels, in a good way, no longer in England but in somewhere altogether stranger. Perhaps a part of Australia or Chile. The sea is almost always a therapeutic presence. Its indifference to our fate calms the ego and places the self in a wider, consolingly indifferent context.
The School of Life has launched a new retail range (theschooloflife.com)

The ultimate beach read by Fay Weldon, author

I am looking forward to reading Catherine O’Flynn’s third novel, Mr Lynch’s Holiday. I much enjoyed her first novel What Was Lost (which won a Costa Prize) and the second, The News Where You Are, so why not the third? Especially so since it’s about a holiday paradise and how “living abroad” in the blazing sun can feel less like a holiday and more like a life sentence, thus bearing out my own prejudices.

Ms O’Flynn is a remarkable and original writer, who finds her sources among the more ordinary and overlooked of her fellow citizens and brings them to sharp social significance. Tenderness, warmth, thoughtfulness and comic genius are words that get flung around a lot, but it’s more than that. She flinches at nothing and is as sharp as dammit.
Fay Weldon’s Habits of the House (£7.99) and Long Live the King (£7.99) are both published by Head of Zeus. To order either copy for £6.39, with free UK pp, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846. She blogs at fayweldon.co.uk/blog

The ultimate summer dress by Jade Parfitt, model and presenter

Temperley London’s summer dress is a graphic tile lace dress, which comes in citrus or pale blue, is on my wish list for summer. It is perfect for any nice lunches and dinners out, and would make an excellent dress to wear to a wedding, giving good coverage as well as looking great on any dance floor. From £450, temperleylondon.com.

The ultimate summer bloom by Dan Pearson, gardener

In the pink: Pelargonium tomentosum. Photograph: Alamy

Certain perfumes capture the summer – cut grass, tomato foliage and the muskiness of blackcurrants – but Pelargonium tomentosum is one I could not be without. Soft, cool and minty, the perfume is liberated when you fondle its leaves, which are downy as baby rabbit fur. I grow them in pots and keep them up close by a path or on a terrace. They are edge of woodland plants in South Africa and ideal for cool corners here. P tomentosum will overwinter in a sheltered corner if you are lucky, but keep a few cuttings going inside and you can remind yourself what summer was like deep in the midwinter. Available from woottensplants.com and crocus.co.uk.