I could always take up alligator wrestling or rolling in hot charcoal

THE Voices in my maddened head were coming through loud and clear, haunting my fevered brain. ‘Oh, you lucky thing!’ ‘Imagine – 28 degrees centigrade!’ ‘It’s grey skies and drizzle back here at home!’ Not only could I hear the words spoken by The Voices but I could also detect the exclamation marks as I sat hunched over the breakfast table.

‘I suppose you’re sunbathing!’

That last Voice must have been Aunt Greta, channelling her thoughts to me over the ether from the sitting room of her nursing home in Ballygoboy. Our aunt was a great woman in her time for the Ambré Solaire and the beaches of the Mediterranean, before leg ulcers and a dodgy knee put a stop to her gallop.

I resolved to send her a postcard, one of those postcards showing the resort blistering in sub-tropical glare, with an ‘X’ scratched in on the picture to indicate our holiday apartment. In the meantime, I scrunched up my face and attempted to channel a reply: ‘No, Greta, I hate sunbathing. If I wish to destroy my skin, I can always take up nude alligator wrestling or rolling in hot coals. I would rather drink factor 50 sun-block than spend the day lathered in the stuff and lying out for the day by the pool here in Los Lederas.’ Such thoughts put me at a very far remove from most of my fellow residents at the luxurious La Litra holiday complex overlooking the beach in the Canaries.

Through the open window of the apartment, a sound-track more immediate, wholesome and joyous than The Voices was provided by children squealing and laughing as they cavorted in the pool. Fair Hermione and young Persephone prowled meanwhile among the sun-loungers, towels poised to reserve a spot offering the desired combination of shade and UV exposure.

Veterans of such expeditions to Saharan latitudes, they reported that this year’s crop of Germans were a bunch of lie-a-beds who presented no real threat. However, a gang of devious Belgians had brought their alarm clocks and were on patrol at dawn each morning to snatch most of the prime sites.

While the womenfolk sorted out their slots on the patio, I remained aloof up on the fifth floor contemplating a bowl of cereal with glum melancholy. I attempted to lift the mood by considering all the good things associated with vacations on this sunny isle.

The tourism industry here – and it truly is an industry on a vast scale – does practically everything in its power to make each visitor happy. They have electric buggies for hire to the disabled elderly to whizz about and Porsche sports cars rented to the show-off Russian oligarchs. They have euro-a-pint beer on tap round the clock for the lager guzzlers and Bruce Springsteen tribute artists for the fans of American rock/pop. They have big brand shopping malls for those who brought their credit cards and hawkers on street corners selling fake Rolexes for paltry sums of ready cash.

The superb public transport system provides easy access to theme parks, zoological gardens and local markets. And, best of all, the restaurants make dining out both attractive and affordable. In the space of a few days, we ate dinner in Cantonese, Indian and Spanish styles, revelling in a welter of cosmopolitan delights from poppadums to paella and Peking duck.

Then we lurched back to our primeval culinary roots, ordering a feed of fish and chips on the terrace of the Crubeen O’Flaherty Pub - washed down with genuine Irish sangria, of course. The thought of it almost made me smile, until the continuing awfulness of breakfast muscled its way back to the forefront of my consciousness. What, I asked despairingly, is the point of getting out of bed in the morning when there is no pot of tea on the table?

No Spanish holiday flat or villa comes equipped with a tea-pot. The coffee pot in our apartment smelled of, yes, coffee, making it completely unsuitable. In the end, a glass water jug provided an improvised substitute, and saved the holiday.

PS: The great Hiberno/Belgian sun lounger conflict was settled in the swimming pool with an inter-national water-basketball match. Both sides cheated like mad and the fixture was a draw.