What did we do on hols? We sat on the terrace!

Don’t fancy these roads at night, babe!” The Snapper is clutching the sheet of very precise directions sent to us by local man Juan, who’s renting us a villa. The car blocking our way is now reversing away from us, expertly finding a tiny recess in this rural Mallorcan side road.

Driving a rental car is always slightly nerve-wracking because of the exorbitant charges they slap on you for damaging the vehicle in any way. This Renault drives beautifully, but looks a heck of a lot like an over-inflated balloon.

Now I’m squeezing between the other car on one side and the concrete ditch that offers a four foot vertical drop on the other. These ditches run along all these tiny roads, some sporting little brick lips, which might at least give a warning that your car is about to disappear into a void.

“I know what you mean!” agrees the Snapper, “In the dark you’d have no idea where the ditches were!”

“We can go out for lunches instead.”

“Splendid! Turn sharp left 125 metres after a tall telegraph pole painted with red and white stripes.”

Very precise directions indeed, which is just as well, as our holiday home is beyond the black stump.

I’d spoken to Juan on the phone and he said the villa was close to other villas, only 6km from the old town of Pollença. I’d imagined a semi-suburban estate with purpose-built self-catering “villas” scattered around freshly-landscaped hills. To my delight, when we finally find the place, I discover I couldn’t have been more wrong.

There’s no need for those “quotation marks” around the word “villa”. This is a proper villa, the kind in which local families live. Surrounded by a bowl of mountains we’re in a vale of almond groves, with cypress trees and terracotta tiled roofs poking through the greenery here and there.

For once the picture on the internet proves to be unworthy in a good way. You expect the brochure shot to be slightly misleading, and as we’ve stayed in self-catering places before, we expected a tiny place.

How wonderful it is to find that you’ve far more than you could have hoped for.

“Wow!” cries my beloved, as we wander past the pool and barbeque area, our eyes catching glimpses of dozens of different mountain views, appearing between palm fronds.

“Is this ours? Wow!”

In the past we’ve only ever holidayed in places within walking distance of restaurants and shops, but that past is now so distant, I figured all we needed this time was to collapse. It’s been three years since we had a proper holiday and last Autumn both of us started to become unwell, falling apart from the relentless duty of it all.

Many consider trips away to be something of a trial to a relationship, but the Snapper and I holiday well together. Armed with a book for each day of the stay, a glass of white wine and a sun lounger, she is very happy to avoid people, because she works with the public.

To read Charlie’s column in full, please see this week’s Galway City Tribune.