If times are hard, I just crack on with it. My parents’ drive, energy and work ethic was incredible and they never moaned, even when the business they’d built up from scratch collapsed in the 90s. They lost everything, but they took other jobs, started again and enabled my brother and me to finish our educations.

Race meant nothing to me growing up in Bradford. I’m an Indian and grew up among Sikhs, Punjabis, Muslims, Pakistanis, white English and Lebanese. I was the only Asian kid in my school, but it wasn’t an issue. On my 16th birthday I invited my six best friends to a Sikh temple and they all dressed up in Sikh costume and helped chop vegetables.

Sitting around doing nothing is horrendous. I’m always up at the crack of dawn, freezing my ass off in a field somewhere, but I love it. My husband is trying to teach me how to lounge. The only pacifier that really works is Netflix.

Some people think I’m rude, but I’m just a straight-talking girl from Yorkshire. I’m proud to be from a county with a very strong cultural identity.

Shouting across a table in a rowdy pub is what life is all about. I’ve been known to dance on the table, too, but my friends don’t even bat an eyelid. They’ll just look up and go, “OK, Anita’s on the table again.” I need to rein that in actually.

Just because you like the countryside doesn’t mean you have to listen to Bach all day long. I grew up in the 90s and went to Leeds University so music and dancing is a huge part of my world. It’s part of my youth culture. Part of my tribe. I love drum and bass and hip-hop and music by white men with guitars.

I ran away from therapy. I don’t think you figure out what sort of person you are until life throws shit at you. Everyone keeps telling me, therapy’s the thing to do, but I just felt that the idea of talking about yourself was so indulgent.

For a long time I’ve done what a lot of women do and that’s saying what you think people want to hear. Pleasing people. Giving the right answers. The older I get the more exhausting I find it not to be honest.

I’ve held my tongue for way too long. I’ve been in a meeting where someone thought it was OK to do an Indian accent and I just laughed it off like everyone else. I wish I’d told them to stick it. That wasn’t too long ago either and there have been so many moments like that. I want to stop doing what I’ve been doing since I was a kid – not rocking the boat. I want to rock the boat. I’m sick of laughing things off.

I take no second of my life for granted. I am running with it as far as I can go. Why the hell not?

Anita Rani is hosting the Blue Planet Live II tour in 2019. For more information and tickets, visit blueplanet2live.co.uk