There are some real advantages in having young children to take away on holiday with you – priority boarding on the plane, an excuse to go on waterslides, being allowed to squeal out loud with delight when you spot a crab – but travelling a deux without juvenile accessories does have its upsides, too.

Being able to take your top off on the beach without your companions dying of embarrassment is one (my better half having, over 30 years, become inured to my naked upper torso, I’m pleased to report).

Being able to sleep through until 9 or 10 o’clock without interruption is another.

And a third, which we’re taking advantage of right now, is being able to rent a tiny one room villa in the Med for next to nothing.

This villa is beautiful. So beautiful, that when the Menorca guide book arrived from Amazon last week I squealed out loud with delight because there, representing the attractive historical architecture of this pretty little island, is a photo of the villa we’ve booked. And now, after a day of travel, here we are, in this tastefully decorated 100-year-old cottage, with a galley kitchen and a shower room leading off from the alcove that is the bedroom. There’s a charming thin Indian door on a hook between the shower and the bed, and it couldn’t be nicer. We switch on the outside lights but in the middle of the island it’s too dark to see any further than the brilliant Mediterranean garden that awaits us in the morning.

Everything’s perfect. Well, except for my hacking cough.

If I hadn’t already planned a day of train travel to Gatwick, standing at the boarding gate watching families with children overtake us, queuing for our suitcase, waiting at the car hire office, I’d have either spent it in bed or at the walk-in centre.

I’ve had a cold for a week, and while there are signs of recovery – I can take in several breaths a minute now, and my ears seem to have unblocked a bit – I have a cough that increases in volume and frequency as the day goes on.

As we’ve travelled all day, we hit the sack early. I figure that if I can get off to sleep before the ribs start tussling with each other, I may doze through. But after a while, I wake to find lungs trying to sneak out through my mouth.

My husband stirs a little and so I creep out of bed before he wakes completely.

I head off to the kitchen area, where I cough and cough as quietly as you can when you probably ought to be in bed and on antibiotics. This is quite an exhausting business, but I think I’ve done it pretty well, until half an hour later or so I return silently to bed.

I can tell my husband is awake, but we both pretend I can’t. I drop off soon after, and when I wake up there’s sunshine across the bed and it’s already warm. My husband is staring at the ceiling, looking shattered.

I’ve been awake all night with your cough, he says. That’s rubbish, I tell him. After that first session, I was as right as rain.

Not so, he says wearily. You were coming out with a horrible low cough every 10 seconds or so, all night. I was really worried. You sounded very weird.

He rolls over to try to get some sleep at last, and I take the hint and get up before my lungs realise it’s party time again.

I make some tea and open the front door.

There you go again, comes a plaintive cry from the bed. But I’ve done nothing. Even I can’t cough and swallow tea at the same time.

I look out over the garden, and the field beyond with a donkey, and then put my glasses on.

There, past the donkey is a magnificent striped circus tent. And there in front is a huge cage. With a lion. The lion looks at me and then at the donkey, and roars.

Please take some cough mixture, begs a voice from inside the house.