Around about 30 years ago we took off from West Somerset with our young son Harry (then aged about 2 or 3) and our good friend Neil Hopkins, and we travelled south to Spain for five or six weeks in a big white van which had been converted into a sort of camper, in a bid to break the back of the winter.

I vowed I’d do it every year after that - and have never done it since.

Although I can’t moan because my press trips have taken me around the world and many of them toon place in the winter time.

Anyway, someone lent us a house in a village near the town of Motril, way down there on the bit of Spanish coast that faces Africa. And one night they had a fiesta in this village called Gualshos and we went along… I will never forget that rip - which included that old castle we visited in on of my previous post.

And for many reasons - pandemics, financial woes, need to earn a crust - I wonder if we will ever do this sort of trip away again…