THEY say moving house comes a close second to divorce in terms of life's most stressful experiences. And I imagine holidays are well up the list as well.
Certainly my relationship with my local friendly building society has taken something of a knock as a result of holiday 1996.
After some experience of moving house I had long ago resolved never again to fall for the ambiguities of the small print. And I fancied I knew what I was about as I perused the holiday blurb.
Three cottages set in the grounds of a large house, sharing its swimming pool and tennis court. The one we wanted was already booked. And there were slight differences in the descriptions of it and the available alternative.
The former, for example, had "comfortable chairs." Ours was "cosily furnished" with a mixture of furniture, making it a very restful place to stay." Did this amount to anything?
Not at all, came the reassuring reply. The gate keeper's cottage was chintzy, lots of country prints and colours, very comfortable. And, for good measure, the kitchen had just been fitted with new units.
Indeed it had. And the consequent rubble had been dumped in the large garden, safely enclosed to make it highly suitable for small children and dogs.
The garden, moreover, was on a slope. The path cutting across it was the only place to sit if you wanted to avoid your plastic chair tipping over. And it didn't, as expected, overlook the owner's large house or the other cottages and facilities.
To the right was an undeveloped, overgrown plot of land. Straight ahead was a working farm.
The house instructions warned us to keep the gates closed in case the cows wandered in, and helpfully provided the farmer's number just in case. There seemed little point ringing him about the smell of the pigs or the flies of the biting variety which shared our space indoors and out.
Still, it was the country after all. And this might have been bearable had the first impressions of the interior of our country retreat not been so overwhelmingly disappointing, and all else been equal.
The country prints and colours seemed confined to some very cheap curtaining. The rest of the furniture looked like the left overs from several house clearances - a sofa bed which sank to the floor when anyone sat on it, a couple of old office chairs masquerading as armchairs under stretch covers, folding chairs to augment the dining facilities.
The wood chip paper didn't always meet on the walls. The odd hole in the skirting board presumably did nothing to deter the invading spiders. I imagine the heat encouraged them further.
The central heating boiler dominated the small dining room. And the heating system required that the radiator in the bathroom be permanently on. During some of the hottest days, and nights, of the summer this made the whole place seem even more claustrophobic.
Then, of course, there was the problem of the dogs. The two labradors might have slept in the large porch off the kitchen - except that it wasn't there; nor was the tumble dryer it was meant to accommodate. When I asked the owner about this, she somewhat impatiently informed me that they couldn't do everything at once.
That was barely an hour after arrival, following a long car journey on a busy Sunday morning. Hot and irritable, the temptation after the first inspection was to pack up the car and return home.
The owner observed that she couldn't influence my decision, since I hadn't yet paid the balance due.
But we really didn't want to go home, and might regret it if we did. Surely, if the sunshine held, we could immerse ourselves in the pool, exhaust ourselves on the tennis court, and keep our acquaintance with the cottage to the minimum.
Alas the sun proved an unreliable ally, and there were more horrors in store. We'd stayed in small complexes before, with the residents of two or three cottages sharing a small pool.
Civilised people know how to work these things with mutual consideration to advantage. And the owner of the main house and her family had their own guaranteed time in the facilities, so there would be plenty of space and opportunity for the rest of us.
However she hadn't somehow indicated that, in addition to the other cottages, large wings of the main house had also been converted for holiday lets that more than 40 people would be claiming use of the pool, or that the delightful complex housing the pool contained neither shower nor toilet, with the nearest w.c. under lock and key in an outhouse some 40 feet away.
There was no evident traffic in the direction of those facilities. And even the 25 minutes we did get alone in the pool were attended by dark thoughts about the heavy use of chlorine, and the shade of blue under which you couldn't see your hands, never mind your feet.
After 48 hours indoors and out, tired and (in my case) badly bitten, we headed back to the joys of dusty London, resentful that we should have to pay for such an experience.
But need we? The cheque wouldn't have been presented yet, We could stop it, and place the onus on the owner. We'd already lost the deposit, which was enough to cover the two nights we'd stayed. Letting the owner decide whether to sue seemed a highly just conclusion.
Alas, the building society took a different view. After some contradictory advice from the local branch, head office informed me that they had a legal obligation to meet cheques made payable to a third party. "But it's my money," I complained, insisting that the society had no contract with the proprietor.
They didn't dispute that, but effectively told me the money ceased to be mine the minute I drew the cheque.
I'm not yet convinced about that. And I'm torn between resentment at my temporary landlord and a building society which I would have expected to be sympathetic and supportive.
Amazing, really, the daft expectations we carry around!