On the way back to the airport last week, we passed a restaurant that had the tag-line “Nuthin’ mo’ betta’.” No, seriously: it was written just like that. We didn’t stop there, unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) so I can’t confirm whether there really IS anything “mo’ betta” than Billy’s Shrimp Shack, or whatever the hell it was called, but it kinda sums up the holiday for me – and I should add here that I do not mean to imply anything about Floridian grammar by that statement. (Although, note to Disney: “sweets” does not have an apostrophe. Just FYI.)

For me, there is nothing, er, more better – no, it’s no use, I’m not going to be able to keep writing that, sorry – than being on holiday, and since I’ve been home, I’ve had the worst case of post-holiday blues ever. Ever.

It’s not just the weather. Sure, the weather is part of it, and a pretty big part at that, but just to pre-empt all of the people who will want to tell me that OMG, the weather was just FABULOUS here while I was always (Seriously, why do people do that? Why are they always so keen to tell you how wonderful the weather has been while you’ve been on vacation? Is it to try and make you feel like you shouldn’t have bothered going? Because it doesn’t work, if so. It’s like all those people who go, “Well, you don’t have much of a suntan!” as if they want you to feel like you have somehow FAILED at vacationing or something. But I digress.), the weather isn’t the only thing I miss. It’s all of it. Everything, right down to the sound of the crickets at night and the smell of the mall on my new sweater. Silly things. Inconsequential things. Things you don’t actually travel to see, but miss like hell when you come home.

Oh, and the weather of course. And Sephora.

So I’ve been feeling pretty sad these past few days, and although I always feel sad when I come home, this time the feeling has been much harder to shake than usual. Rubin, however, has been doing his very best to cheer me up. He’s been staying with Terry’s mum while we were gone, and while he was there, he managed to eat three pineapple cakes and a Kit Kat over and above his allotted food and treats. (Yes, I know dogs aren’t supposed to eat chocolate, but he stole it out of Terry’s mum’s handbag and suffered no ill effects, even although he ALSO ate the wrapper. He stole the cakes from her bed, where she’d placed them for a few minutes to keep them out of his reach while she unpacked her shopping. I have no idea how he got onto the bed, because he can’t normally do that. He must’ve REALLY wanted those cakes, is all I can say…) Terry’s mum and Keith, her partner, are absolutely amazed by his capacity to eat, and to keep on eating, even although he must surely to God be full, and can’t possibly be actually TASTING anything, on account of he’s swallowing it whole.It amazes me, too.

Anyway, it’s good to have him home, even if it’s not good to actually BE home. Since we landed on Friday, I have spent more or less every waking moment searching online for holidays to anywhere. Terry, meanwhile, has been making this: