If holidays are supposed to be about getting away from it all, why did I spend mine worrying?

I’d pay a massive supplement for any resort that could turn me into the type of person who doesn’t flinch when offered a massage. Until then, being truly carefree feels out of reach

Imagine lolling around on a sun lounger without totting up how much you’ve spent at the beach bar (Getty)

I have been away. Well, I have spent a week with my trotters up on a Greek island trying to justify doing sod all whilst not even getting a tan.

I think if you at least go brown whilst doing nothing, then you’ve got something to show for your weeks idling – your body turns into a kind of holiday trophy. But if, like me, you turn from pale grey to a kind of burnt mauve, it makes everything trickier.

I can’t stop myself from worrying whether I deserve this break, and can I really afford it? What if drinking at lunchtime turns into a habit and I start swigging lager while listening to the News at One? What will happen if I never stop going back to the breakfast buffet – and why do my teeth hurt?

Relaxing is really hard work isn’t it? Personally, I think it’s harder to relax on holiday than at any other time because from the moment you set off, you’re expected to have “fun” in big fat capital letters, only I can’t, not that easily – it takes me three days to unclench my jaw.

Of course things aren’t helped when you kick your holiday off by arriving at Victoria station for the Gatwick Express, only to be told by two very casual members of staff that it isn’t running. “Signal failure, innit.” Now hold on, how can this be? This train service is a direct link to our dreams, it’s a magic train, cancelling it is like cancelling the Hogwarts Express.

Without it, planes will be missed, sangrias will remain undrunk and babies will not be born; it’s the Gatwick Express mate, not the number 12 to the Elephant and Castle shopping centre. And if it isn’t going to run, then the least they can do is staff the station with trained therapists or St John Ambulance types, who know how to deal with those of us who react to cancellations by falling to the floor and gibbering about “getting there on time”, whilst swallowing paracetamol because their jaunty holiday straw hat is slightly too tight and has given them a migraine.

As it happened, we didn’t need the £120 black-cab mercy dash across London to the airport because the flight was delayed by four hours. That’s right, FOUR hours, Oh I’m so relaxed now, I’m having such fun now, the plane’s broken, I’ve got 11 per cent battery left on my phone and I can’t even go mad and buy a sarong with a flamingo on or something from Accessorize, because we got trapped at the boarding gate before they realised there was going to be a delay.

Actually, at this point in the proceedings, I very nearly did relax, because things were going as badly as I knew they would. All my fears were completely vindicated; this holiday was going to be rubbish, just as I’d anticipated. In fact, I was possibly at my happiest when rumours of “food vouchers” started circulating, because only then had this officially turned into a disaster, they don’t hand out food vouchers for anything less. But then they called our flight.

Everyone else sighed with relief and sat back to enjoy such delicacies as a steamed cheese and ham toasty, where the bread is boiling and soggy one minute, then cold and stale the next – marvellous.

Meanwhile, I sat there and thought about what “part” on the plane had so urgently needed replacing, and if it had been refitted properly; and whether my luggage had made it into the hold; and why hadn’t I worn my nice new silk jacket with the glitter wristbands rather than leaving it to airport baggage roulette?

Do you see now? Do you understand how exhausting it is to be a middle-aged woman with anxiety, money, privilege and guilt issues? Should I even be flying anyway? Obviously not, I should be camping in a yurt woven from my own sanctimony.

If I could choose any superpower in the world it would be to be carefree, just for a week, just whilst I’m on my holidays. Imagine that: a week of not worrying whether that beef gyros is going to go straight through me, or if the hairdryer in the hotel room is an electrical health hazard.

Imagine lolling around on a sun lounger without totting up how much we’ve already spent at the beach bar, or what I’ve done with my return-flight boarding pass (bear in mind I wouldn’t need it for another six days).

Honestly, I’d pay a massive supplement for any holiday resort that could guarantee 100 per cent relaxation or at least enough to turn me into the type of person that doesn’t flinch when offered a massage.

But they’d have to put something in the water, because it doesn’t seem to matter how glorious my surroundings are, how blue the sky, sparkling the sea and yellow the sun, there’s always a bit of me that wonders why I didn’t check if this island was volcanic before I decided to book.

Forget paradise, what I’m really after is a holiday from myself.