Columnist: That post holiday feeling...

Well, that’s been me this week.

Almost every year, the females in the family head off to Javea, on the Costa Blanca, We know the town well and usually it’s a case of lounging about on the balcony, vino tinto in hand; dipping the occasional toe in the Med and eating lots of hake.

Not this year. The excitement began before we’d even boarded our flight. Massive forest fires had broken out on the hills above the town (not an unusual occurrence) and 2000 people had hadto be evacuated.

As many were Brits and Javea is vaguely near Benidorm , it made the papers.

‘Burnidorm!’ screamed one tabloid, clearly not one to allow the truth to get in the way of a cracking headline and thus putting the wind up the Benidorm-bound passengers.

Javea is in fact about 40km north of Benidorm so there was no chance whatsoever of it burning down, more’s the pity.

From our balcony in the port, we not only had a ringside view of the fires in the distance but also a fiesta taking place in the streets below. The Spanish love their fireworks and we were treated to some amazing displays, accompanied by marching bands and processions into the wee small hours. Being a fatalistic nation, health and safety doesn’t come into it, so the few fireman not deployed elsewhere simply hung over the nearest balcony casually smoking fags.

And just when we thought we couldn’t handle any more excitement, we got to see Chris Froome in stage 19 of the Vuelta a Espana, which began in Javea.

Phew, I need a holiday!