“Ignore fantasy prep and learn from my mistakes”

SOMETIMES, the fortnight’s holiday abroad can be squeezed out by the combined effect of the two weeks that bookend it.

A bit like the sliver of filling in a custard cream, squished out by the two rectangles of dry biscuit.

The week of pre-holiday preparation is never the “Hotel du Cap: Your Capsule Wardrobe,” fantasy sort, which magazines shout about, but the actual kind of prep instead; the kind where you put your head down, the Marigolds on, and battle through that A4 page covered in joyless words like dog food, bins, laundry, fridge, toilets, bank, keys, cars, bags and Ryanair — each word appended by even more dismal ones such as sort, find, organise, empty, scour and check.