Travelling is never simple. It can be beset with problems that never end.

This time, not even when I got home.

It starts when you book the flights and wonder if you could have got a better deal. The niggles continue until you get back.

Checking in on-line makes life simpler but I always worry in case I spelt my name wrong and won’t be allowed to fly unless I pay a surcharge.

“Don’t worry. Easily sorted out, sir. That’ll be £250 for re-booking your seat.”

“But it was my seat. It had my name on it.”

“No, it didn’t. If you remember you spelled it incorrectly therefore you can’t travel on it. This ticket is invalid and you have to book again. You’re lucky that this seat has just become available because the flight is full.”

“But it’s my seat.”

“It will be, sir, when you pay £250.”

Working out travelling time to the airport, whether there will be roadworks on the M62 and how long it might take to get through security, all add up to a mathematical problem that makes my head hurt.

Picking up the hire car should be simple, as long as you’ve remembered the paper section of your licence as well as the plastic card. Both are required.

Then I go into a dither when the nice chap behind the counter asks if I want to upgrade, as if he’s doing me a favour rather than taking another chunk from my Visa card.

Still, by then I’m in that airport-holiday miasma where money doesn’t matter and anything goes. Yes, why not. Put me down for a Rolls Royce with knobs on.

Returning involves the same complexities of time and motion.

The day before coming back from Ireland I bought an alarm clock so I would be sure of rising at 5am. Well, you can’t trust the Irish with a thing like time.

“Will you call me at five?”

“Ah sure I will. Which day?”

And that was my daughter. We got home safely with a sense of relief until I looked in the garden and saw that half the fence had been blown over.

Either there have been bad winds or the Big Bad Wolf had been playing with the three little pigs on the back lawn.

That’s all I needed for Christmas – a carpenter.

Which is rather apposite, considering the time of year.

I’ll settle for someone who can mend my fence. Anyone got any recommendations?