Pull up a blanket. Pour something lovely.

There is a category of dish that I think about more than I probably should. The arrives looking like you didn't try category. The thing that comes out of the cool bag at the picnic and makes people put down whatever they were holding and say oh. The thing that photographs itself.

This trifle jar is that thing.

I developed it specifically for the Battle Proms — because if you're going to sit on the grounds of Highclere Castle as the sun goes down and an orchestra plays and a a Spitfire dances overhead, you need a pudding that is equal to the occasion. And a supermarket tiramisu in a plastic pot, however excellent, is not quite equal to Highclere Castle.

There is no country on earth that picnics quite like Britain.

We do it in the rain. We do it on a Thursday. We do it on a patch of sparse grass between a bandstand and a litter bin, and we make it feel like the most civilised afternoon imaginable.

But there is a spectrum to the British picnic, a glorious range that runs from the spontaneous (blanket from the boot, emergency cheese from the corner shop) to the genuinely spectacular. And this summer, I want to make sure you experience as much of that spectrum as possible.

Because the summer British picnic season is short, and it is precious, and it deserves to be used.

There is a moment at a picnic that I live for.

Not the unpacking — though that's good. Not the first bite — though that's excellent. It's the moment just before the first slice of pie, when the knife goes in and everyone goes quiet without quite meaning to. That half-second of collective breath-holding. And then the reveal: a perfect crescent of golden egg in the centre of every slice, set into the filling like it was always meant to be there.