This summer, as the plane touched down at Heathrow at the end of our two week Florida holiday, I had the distinct sense that something was missing. Then it came to me. It was the lack of abject despair that had accompanied my last return from the Florida sun. The despair that signified the tragic end of my last holiday romance.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise. This latest holiday I’d spent not only with my boyfriend, but also his entire family. A holiday romance hadn’t been on the cards, nor had I wanted one, but I found myself remembering a time when all my holidays had been defined by some kind of elicit passion, even if only in my head. Ten years on I’d exchanged excitement and uncertainty for peaceful stability and it made me feel suddenly old.

The All-American Cheeseball

Given my predisposition for holiday heart break, pursuing Greg, the dashing yacht broker from Miami with such wild abandon was always going to end in, well, heart break. But at the worldly age of 21, I’d gone on that four month holiday determined to fall in love and felt I could handle anything.  In fact, as my two university friends Sandy and Zoe and I sunbathed alluringly on the deck of Zoe’s dad’s new yacht, the question was, could Greg handle me? Zoe, who’d already met Greg when helping her dad find the boat, had described in great detail his George Clooney looks and American film star drawl. So when his jeep swung into the marina and I peered expectantly through my sweaty sunglasses, I fancied him even before he opened the door.

Greg in the flesh didn’t disappoint, as I found out precisely a week later. He managed to find an excuse to pop round to the marina every day, much to the annoyance of Zoe’s protective father. A few days of playing it cool turned into flirting, followed by me wangling a date, followed by me standing on his balcony at two in the morning in a skimpy towel, sipping white wine and thinking ‘I could get used to this’. My efforts to climb quietly back into the boat at 5am in my high heels were in vain, and I was met by Zoe and Sandy demanding information.