Dear Reader

MY NEIGHBOUR plans to spend the whole of June in Spain. He’s renting an apartment near Malaga (Nerja pictured) and needs a car to get out and about.

But hiring a vehicle for a month will work out almost as expensive as renting the apartment.

‘So I’m going to buy an old banger, drive it out there, see if I can off-load it at the end of the month, and then fly home. That’s the cheapest solution,’ he says.

Which sounds crazy — and might not be strictly correct once he factors in the ferry, petrol, tolls. But you get his point.

What’s certain is that it’s going to be a topsy-turvy summer for travel. To be forewarned is to be forearmed comes to mind. So, too, does that trusty old advice about preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.

One juxtaposition, which raised its head yesterday, was the idea put forward (somewhat shakily) by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit Opportunities Minister.

He said that the way to make the Passport Office operate more effectively could be to cut the number of people working in it. The logic of this is not immediately clear, given that some people are waiting more than ten weeks to renew their passports. More hands on deck the better, you may think. But he might be proved right.

Someone needs to lead the charge for bringing in new technology as fast as possible. The powerful civil servants’ unions will be obstructive, but it’s in no one’s interests to see footage of holidaymakers queuing for hours at airports, as they were again yesterday at Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds Bradford.

And yet, travel agents and tour operators keep saying how business is almost back to how it was in the summer of 2019. Indeed, Tui’s boss said this week that we shouldn’t expect many last-minute bargains.

Book now or risk not finding the holiday you want in July and August — and pray that all those hold-ups have held off.