'We now have the horrendous smell to put up with whilst the de-humidifiers get to work...' It's not quite what you want to read in your holiday confirmation email.

Well, how were we to know that the moment we booked a few nights in the Cotswolds the heavens would open - for days on end? Last year, when we passed through it on our way to a family wedding, Moreton-in-Marsh and the surrounding countryside looked idyllically pretty. We promised ourselves a return visit, and so made our plans for this year's end-of-summer break. Then Moreton-in-Marsh became Moreton-under-Water and our holiday B&B lost its ground floor under the stinking flood.

But that was weeks ago, and we hope for the best. Holidays, like the proverbial second marriage, are surely an example of the triumph of hope over experience. Even the best of them tend to leave you feeling a bit discontented.

For a start, there's that moment when you're knee-deep in packing and you find yourself wondering if it wouldn't be so much easier just to stay at home. Even in normal summers it's an impossible task, working out what to take with you. How hot is it going to be? Or cold? Do you need any smart outfits? What about going for walks? You end up packing just about everything.

Then there's the journey. Two years ago we set out for a dream holiday in Italy. We arrived to catch the train to get us to the airport - when up on the station monitor flashed the word 'cancelled.' As it happened, the next train got us there just in time, but not until we'd had some horrible moments of panic.

After that, the holiday was wonderful. We arrived that evening, hot and tired, to be welcomed into the sort of hotel you only ever dream of. We had eight days of bliss.

But that was just the trouble. It's obvious that if you end up in some sort of holiday hell, then you're going to come home miserable. But good holidays have their bad after-effects, too.

Long ago, when we used to stay in holiday cottages with our children, we'd invariably find ourselves in a place that made the house we'd left back home seem like a slum. There'd be superb, efficient plumbing, every possible domestic appliance. Going home afterwards would be a terrible come down.

The Italian dream holiday brought a new twist. Packing in North-East England during one of the summer's cooler spells, we'd brought nowhere near enough clothes for hot weather. My husband decided to try out the hotel's laundry service and despatched two short-sleeved linen shirts. They came back looking as they'd never looked before: lightly-starched, immaculately ironed. He was thrilled.

Unfortunately, he wanted a repeat performance. As far as laundry goes, he's enough of a new man to be able to work the washing machine and even the tumble drier. But when it comes to ironing it's another matter. He never irons. He doesn't see the need, even when an occasion demands a crisp white shirt. The only way I ever get him to wear ironed shirts is to do them myself. I do know how to use starch too, though I'd certainly never use it on a shirt.

But now he knows what can be done, my husband has this vision of shirts laundered as the holiday hotel did them, in all their crisp perfection. Not that he's shown any inclination to learn how to do it himself. So, as far as I'm concerned, he's just going to have to wait until we find ourselves at another hotel like that lovely one by the Italian lake.

It won't be this year. This year we'll just be glad if all traces of the floods have gone, and the sun shines, now and then. Not much room for discontentment there.