During five weeks spent in a part of Spain that necessitated four mile daily walks to the beach and back, with butter and cheese being prohibitively expensive, and us not eating much because of the heat anyway, I felt the fatty layers dropping off me like excess baggage. However, I still appear to weigh just the same as when I left. Having massively overindulged in coffee consumption, though, the withdrawal symptoms I am now experiencing are horrendous.

Abiding memories of Spain are the agony experienced while waiting for the latest text message from Liv updating me on England’s cricket progress. The finale to the fourth test had me close to heart seizure.

My main disappointment was meeting an Australian and preparing to gloat only to find he was less interested in cricket than the average Spaniard.

Julien visited us for lunch one day and after sniffing the air judiciously pronounced where we were staying as a ‘veritable Garden of Eden’. I’m sure Neil was gratified to hear this. His vegetable garden puts ours to shame, although I did discover him putting some sort of bovine elixer – distilled bull’s trachia, along the lines of Bovril – onto his growing plants.