Left to my own devices I could happily sleep for 13 hours. Right now, though, the alarm goes off at 7. I get up slowly as I’ve got low blood pressure and if I rush I’ll get dizzy. Then I’ll go into the garden and let the hens out of their coop. They’re Rhode Island Reds, but to us they’re Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum, Misty and Chuck. One of my biggest pleasures is collecting their eggs. I’m a great believer in eggs. They’re a fantastic food. I have them every morning, usually scrambled with a bit of salmon. While that’s cooking, I’ll make myself a strong coffee and feed the dogs, Poppy and Daisy, and the cats, Chelsea, Lynx and Spider. Oh, and Cicciolina, the bunny. Then I make sure Gabriel and Georgia are up. Gabriel’s 11, he’s the youngest and has just started a new school. Mick and I went with him on his first day, which was lovely.

I’ll then go up and get ready. I use a marine-collagen face cream made by Dr Fred Lim, and I have a big bag of make-up — Yves Saint Laurent lash-lengthening mascara, Tony and Tina lipstick, Robert Piguet’s perfume Fracas — that kind of thing. I only wash my hair once a week — I’m all for letting the hair’s natural oils do their work — so I’ll just tie it up and relax in a hot bath. After that lovely start to the day I can’t bear that frantic decision-making of what to wear, so I always lay out my outfit the night before. Having modelled since the 1970s I’ve got loads of beautiful things to choose from, but you can’t hold on to everything. I recently gave about 350 dresses to Emmaus, the charity for the homeless. And my daughters are forever borrowing stuff — only they refer to it all as “vintage”.

I’m appearing in the West End production of Calendar Girls at the moment, so except for matinée performances I still have the afternoons to myself. I love spending time at home. Our house is in Richmond, beside the Thames, so there are lovely views of the river from the garden, which is one of my favourite places. And I’m really into growing organic vegetables. Through the summer we had an abundance of tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, beetroot, runner beans — in fact, every kind of bean. And for the last few weeks I’ve been out planting root vegetables. They’re great for making winter soups, which are perfect for lunch with toasted Irish soda bread.

Another of my favourite pastimes is writing. I recently did a two-year course on humanities and the Enlightenment with the Open University, and a residential poetry course with the Arvon Foundation in Devon. I love poetry, particularly lots of women poets — Emily Dickinson, Edna St Vincent Millay, Carol Ann Duffy… I love the humour in things like Dorothy Parker’s One Perfect Rose and Wendy Cope’s Loss: “The day he moved out was terrible/ That evening she went through hell/ His absence wasn’t a problem/ But the corkscrew had gone as well.” I take any new poems I’ve written to my writing group. Well, it’s a sort of rock-chick writing club — it’s me, Bob Geldof’s girlfriend, Jeanne Marine, Bill Wyman’s wife, Suzanne, and Rachel Fuller, Pete Townshend’s girlfriend. They’re all very supportive.

When the kids get home from school, we’ll chat about their day. Georgia’s 17 and doing her A-levels. She also does a bit of modelling — she’s the new face of Hudson jeans — while my eldest, Lizzie, has been modelling for several years now. She lives in a mews house at the bottom of the garden. And Jimmy, my eldest boy, is in a band and acts. He’s 6ft 3in, blonde, blue-eyed and has his dad’s mouth, so he’s a gorgeous boy. He’s about to appear in two films: Sex & Drugs & Rock’n’Roll and a biopic of Vivaldi. Evening meals for the kids are usually something simple, like beef bourguignon and mashed potato or a leg of lamb. And there’s always a pudding of some description. There’s no such thing as a diet in our house.

The evening performance of Calendar Girls starts at 7.30, so a car picks me up at 5.30. It’s an hour’s drive into the West End, so I usually make calls or read. I’ve got this great new digital book reader from Sony, and I have a huge catalogue of books on it, so it saves me lugging around a load of books in my bag.

I’m having a wonderful time with the other girls in the cast — they’re all great actresses. And acting on stage is such a thrill — the theatre’s such a magical place. I did my first play about 19 years ago, but it’s only in the last 10 years that I’ve been able to get back into it. I hang out with June Brown a lot — she’s lovely. And we’re both smokers. I only smoke about eight a day, but I’m not quite ready to give up altogether.

The show’s over at 9.45 and I’m in a taxi to take me home by 10. I’ll have a little bite to eat and then I’m ready to go up to bed. My bedroom’s very pink — dusty-pink carpet, rose-pink curtains — but my bedding’s all white linen and I’ve got one of those Tempur-Pedic foam pillows that help prevent neck and shoulder ache. I’ve always got a pile of books by my bed — poetry, philosophy, positive thinking. They all remind you that wanting things you don’t have leads to unhappiness. But I’m really quite a positive person at heart, and life just now couldn’t be better, so I’m determined to enjoy every minute of it.

Times recommends

• How I lost the gift of joy for a while
• How to get Coleen Rooney's post-baby body
• The A-Z of winter style rules