AS the years roll by, and age brings maturity, opportunities come along to repair the psychological scars left over from more youthful, naïve days.

One of my deepest scars goes back to my honeymoon in Turkey when I was so desperate to show my bride that I was a real man.

No, I don’t mean in the way you’re probably all thinking. I mean by my performance astride a jet-ski.

I was a mere 26 – unrecognisable in a pair of budgie-smugglers, a mop of black curls, and a waist free of love-handles – lying on the beach beside my new wife. There was a “Jet-ski for hire” sign in front of us and I was getting bored with all the sun-bathing. It looked easy enough and rather exciting so I decided to give it a go.

The first problem was that I’d torn a contact lens earlier that day, so I was wearing glasses. The second problem was my embarrassing inability to follow instructions.

It was one of those jet-skis which didn’t have a seat. You pulled yourself out of the water and knelt on it, then made it go by squeezing the handlebars.

My mistake was to pull myself on board and squeeze the handlebars at the same time. The result was that the jet-ski surged forward, while I held on for dear life, with my legs dragging in the sea behind me. The tighter I instinctively gripped the handlebars, the faster I went.

In the time it would have taken Usain Bolt to run the 100 metres, I was miles out to sea. And, with my glasses covered in salt water, I couldn’t see how to get back. The beach was just a blur in the distance.

Eventually, after zooming around uncontrollably for an hour – still being dragged behind the jet-ski and screaming – I somehow managed to find my way back. I was given a round of applause by a beach-full of tourists who’d found the while episode hugely entertaining.

“I can’t tell you how embarrassing that was,” groaned my wife.

But that was 28 years ago and I am a different person now: more worldly-wise, more experienced, more of a man.

At the start of the month, my wife and I flew to Croatia for a week’s holiday and it was just the two of us. For one reason or another, our four children couldn’t – or didn’t want to – come.

Consequently, it was considerably cheaper and much less of an ordeal. My wife and I did as we pleased from our little hotel overlooking a picturesque bay near Dubrovnik. And, once again, I found the “Jet-ski for hire” sign calling to me across the sand.

It was a chance to heal the scar – to bury the ghost of the past. “Let’s do it,” I said to my wife.

“But you’re not very good on jet-skis,” she replied – a verdict based on that single, regrettable experience.

It took a couple of days, but I persuaded her to come with me on a two-seater. We paid our money, listened to the instructions, and she sat behind me, with her arms wrapped around my love-handled waist.

Even if I say so myself, I was quite masterful with all that power between my legs. Contact lenses firmly in place, I squeezed the throttle, picked up speed, and bounced across the waves.

I could tell from the sounds of ecstasy behind me – “OH YES! FASTER, FASTER! I LOVE IT! KEEP GOING! KEEP GOING” – that, finally, I had proved myself as a real man.

THE THINGS DADS DO

WHILE I was proving to my wife that I was worth having, spare a thought for my mate Phil.

A proud father-of-two and loving husband, Phil has just come back from holidaying with his wife Karen in Spain.

Karen did all the organising and all the packing. Phil was given just one instruction: “Don’t forget your driving licence.”

Try to imagine the scene when he and Karen arrived to at the car hire company, only for Phil to realise he’d forgotten his licence.

No matter how hard he protested, he wasn’t allowed to have the car. They had to spend a small fortune going to their villa and back to the airport by taxi. In the meantime, any trips out had to be by bus.

The doghouse can be a very cold place.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

PRIDE of place in this week’s “The Things They Say” goes to my four-year-old niece Isabella.

Isabella lives in Los Angeles and her dad, my brother Paul, posted a Facebook video of her telling a joke.

Isabella is a big fan of Elsa from the Disney film Frozen and he joke went like this: “Why would you never buy Elsa a balloon?” she asked.

“I don’t know – why would you never buy Elsa a balloon?” asked her dad.

Isabella broke into a big smile and started singing: “Because she’d…Let it go, let it go!”