I hope that my absence wasn’t too painful for you all; I did try to leave you with adequate reading material, which I hope you enjoyed. As you can see from the photograph, I had a terrible time; my depressed face says it all. The weather was terrible, the beaches were rammed full of hideous people, the scenery was dull and uninspiring.

As you can see, the view from my window at the hotel was simply diabolical. Not only was there a load of tropical foliage, and thousands of foul-smelling gardenias, but the sea was completely flat and boring.

All-in-all, I suppose, what I’m trying to say is this: don’t be jealous of my holiday. It wasn’t fun or relaxing at all. I was forced to spend hours on end snoozing on my sunlounger, catching up on my reading and sipping chilled white wine. Dreadful, absolutely dreadful.