10:30 and we have successfully checked out. Sadly, due to a quirk of fate (a takeover I think), the hotel which administers our holiday apartment is not the nearest hotel, but one a few hundred metres down the road. Still, with the help of a pressure bandage (which has reduced the swelling) and the support of a strong husband, I made it down the stairs and along the street, and am now installed in the lounge area of the hotel foyer: in the shade, sitting on a comfortable sofa, with free WIFI and as close as possible to the ladies’ room. Nick has taken the children swimming to fill in some time. So far, so good.

One of the more interesting bits that came up on a John Grinder course I did a few years ago was his suggestion to pay attention to the songs that run unbidden through your head. After years of having ‘We’ve got to get out of this place/ if it’s the last thing we ever do’ and UB40’s ‘If it happens again I’m leaving / I’ll pack up my things and go’ on rapid rotation, it’s interesting to note that it is now more likely to be ‘Ajax’ shoulders moved boulders / Helen’s hips launched ships’ (by the wonderful Peggy Seeger) or ‘That’s my daughter in the water / everything she knows I taught her’. In fact Dash got a bit offended when I kept singing that last one and I had to come up with something that mentioned sons post haste. Sadly I couldn’t use the McGarrigle’s ‘First Born Son’ (which is fun to sing) because a) Jack’s the firstborn, and b) the person described in the song is a redneck arsehole. Fortunately another McGarriggle song fitted the bill, can’t remember the title but it goes: ‘It’s the sun, son, shining on the water…’.