I’ve become the sort of foreign traveller I scoffed at in my youth

I SENT a few texts home during the week, complaining about the heat and humidity, and about how I kept having to slip into the pool to cool off.

To my surprise, each text seemed to elicit an unconscionable amount of abuse in response — four-letter words and everything. One texter was unkind enough to express the hope that the next time I “slipped” into the pool I might break more than a sweat.

OK, I know how awful the weather has been at home. It’s deeply unworthy of me, on holidays abroad for the first time in years, to be gloating. But I can’t help it. I seem to have picked a more or less perfect 10 days to visit one of the southern states of the US. It’s their perfect time — not too hot, not too many insects, seasonal fruit at its ripest and endless sunshine.