In the end it’s not so bad being marooned in London when everyone else seems to have jumped ship (or taken a plane) to escape our monsoon-style weather. Because London is increasingly one of the greatest cities to be in, however much we all moan about transport, costs and of course the weather. The whole world lives here and if you’re searching for exoticism it’s not hard to find - but this summer it gets even better.

Sometimes you’re tied to your desk, slowly and painfully eeking out the words that will eventually take book form - but which is a fair way away yet. So there’s a bit of an energy and inspiration low. Then suddenly an email pings into the inbox asking for a few words about an obscure place you travelled to over a decade ago. It’s just to fill a tiny slot in a magazine, not a feature, but it wakes me up from my soporific hiatus.

After a bit of a file-shuffle, nay scuffle, I find the cutting from all that time ago (a miracle in itself) and start re-reading my description of the Togian Islands.

Some holidays are hard to encapsulate - and to predict. My latest belongs to both those categories. Last Friday, sick of the English rain, I booked flights for my partner and me for the next day. So it was that we found ourselves on Wizz Air, a Hungarian budget airline, winging our way to Split, in Croatia. We were en route to the sun and a cheap self-catering ‘apartman’ I’d found in a 5-minute search on the net. Though small it looked like it had a nice sea view, was on an island only 12km from Split airport and the weather map showed nothing but giant yellow suns. How wrong could you get for four nights ?