Yesterday morning I woke up drenched in sweat, thinking, This is it, this is surely it, I'm just about to start perimenopause. But it turned out that the room was too warm.

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On arriving at home last night, I realised to my chagrin that the mother-in-law had cleaned our bedroom, changed our sheets, and washed our laundry. Obviously I didn't hide the key to our room well enough, but I thought the fact that it was locked would deter her. Never underestimate a determined mother-in-law with no sense of boundaries.

Of my holiday I miss, along with the warmth and the solitude, the long periods of privacy. To not be observed or disturbed for long periods of time, which in effect allows solitude and all its pleasures to flourish. In a way I had privacy wherever I went in Playa Blanca, because of course no one knew me at all, which was deeply gratifying after months of very rarely leaving my small Irish town.

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The other thing about our bedroom that I noticed is its old-house smell, to which, before the holiday, I had become noseblind. It smells like the rest of this house, dark and damp and way too big for its three inhabitants.

One night during the holiday, I dreamt the mother-in-law had prematurely packed her bedroom and had emptied seven other bedrooms and two sitting rooms in this rangy and frankly unmanageable house. Turning to me, she said, "And why aren't you packed?!" By the end of the year, we hope; fingers crossed.

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