I must apologise if you have just knocked at the front door and I seem to have ignored you. I cannot move from the study as recently I went to see Sue Curnow, a foot healthcare professional, who recommended a home treatment that I am following. (Mrs Curnow is such a capable and fun person I am tempted to seek her advice on matters other than just my feet.)

It involves lathering one's feet in moisturiser and placing them in plastic bags. I have combined this with an Australian hair treatment, which smells of wallaby dung (I guess), and then my head is wrapped in cling film. Suffice it to say that were more women to adopt these practices then there would be fewer children in the world.

This belated interest in my extremities is about 'treating' myself and has the side effect of making me hungry.

As a child one of my great culinary treats was Welsh rarebit. Later in 1969 I was the first woman to dine at High Table at the all-male Downing College in Cambridge, where it was traditional to finish the meal with a savoury dish which was often cheese on toast. These are the roots of my life-long quest for the perfect Welsh rarebit.

I am such an expert and perfectionist that I am loathe to ask for it in restaurants for fear of almost certain disappointment. I have to remember, too, to ask for no garnish, that dispiriting Nick Clegg addition to which I am allergic by temperament. There is a new café in Stow on the Wold, Huffkins, that in most other respects is excellent.

But its version was a large oven-proof dish dauntingly awash with melted cheese with two chunks of bread submerged and drowning. The café at Minchinhampton, so rightly popular with its fresh and tasty food, comes much closer with four cheeses deliciously browned and looking temptingly light.

Looking through dozens of recipes – every chef tries to come up with a new twist – I see the temptation is to over complicate. My chum Dickens invariably ended his meals with a dish of melted cheese on toast and it really is that simple.

So my recipe today is grate cheese, mix with beer and mustard, or nothing, spread on toast and grill. Just take care not to trip over the plastic bags on your feet.

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