When she’s not bombing around in speed boats, helicopters and Lancaster bombers, climbing live volcanoes or being chased by Predator drones*, these are some of the things she likes...

Lovely friends, pretty dresses, real beer and delicious whisky, dancing to live music, bonfire night, getting unexpectedly upgraded to business class, the 1995 BBC adaptation of 'Pride and Prejudice', walking to the top of big hills and holidays in castles. She’s just about good enough at Frisbee to play with boys and she loves getting really cold and wet and exhausted and then getting warm and dry again.

She has a tendency to get excited about things, and she loves it more when she can infect other people to be just as excited as her. She looks on the bright side, she loves solving problems and she hates disappointing people.

Her party piece when she was 5 was to explain to grown-ups how steam engines work. Maybe she can still do it, she’s not sure.

She has a hidden competitive streak that she manages to keep in check most of the time, but occasionally it escapes without warning. She’s not a big fan of board games for just this reason and Monopoly has been known to make her cry.

She loves music, dancing and theatre and she plays clarinet and saxophone in a kind of pseudo military band/big band. If you were to hang out with her she might have to make you come and watch them. It's not cool, but you might find yourself secretly enjoying it.

In her dreams she’s more or less a cross between CJ from the West Wing and Liz Lemon from 30 Rock.