DEAR readers, by the time you read these lines I'll be gone. Gone from the constraints of the office.

Gone from the concrete walls which hold me and - in a few days at least - gone from the country altogether.

It is holiday season and I'm having my slice. The seats are booked and I'm off to Crete.

For the past three years, circumstances have not allowed me to leave these shores during my annual two-week break.

Last year I spent the fortnight moving house and acclimatising myself to my new surroundings. The year before that the Long Suffering Marjorie insisted on saving her pennies as she began applying for a place at teacher training college.

I can't remember what our excuse was in the summer of 2000, but I do remember that the last time the LSM and I went to sunnier climes was 1999.

It was the year Man United won the treble, Blackburn Rovers were relegated, Burnley promoted. And the year I went to Turkey.

Since then I have been consigned to weekend breaks in bed and breakfasts and guesthouses. Edinburgh, Cumbria, Llandudno - lovely places one and all but you don't come back feeling like you have actually been on holiday.

A real holiday means going abroad. The whole experience of being delayed at the airport, sitting next to the fat woman who spreads on to your already cramped seat on the plane and gleefully tells you she gets sick at the very thought of flying (and starts to sweat heavily to prove it).

Of stepping out into a blast of warm air and gliding across the airport tarmac in one of those Lego-like buses, hanging on to the handrail.

And somehow ending up next to that fat woman again, colliding with her when the bus comes to a sudden halt.

Then there's the wait for the luggage. Stifling in the humid carousel lounge, in the jeans and jumper a flight from Manchester required, but which now seems somewhat misplaced, waiting for your suitcase to pop its head out of the plastic flaps.

And waiting.

At the other end of the airport you spy those coming to the end of their hols. Red of face and armed with bottles of Ouzo and cartons of cheap cigarettes which they will probably have smoked by the time they board. Their grim faces peer out behind the glass divide, like exhibits in the zoo, and you afford them a knowing smirk.

Your pale face speaks volumes about the weather back home, and they may be comfortable in those Bermuda shorts now, but wait till they get to Manchester and try to flag a taxi home. Big mistake.

Finally we're on the coach and out to the hotel. Then the holiday really starts.

Days by the pool, getting hit on the head by stray beach balls, avoiding novelty crocodile lilos and the little brats that sit astride them.

Visits to the local supermercado to marvel at the funny names they call the 'English' things. Like Raider for Twix - how odd.

Grabbing a big bag of Wotsits (only they aren't called Wotsits and they're a bit funny), a huge bottle of beer and back to the room to crash out.

And the nights are something else.

As one half of a couple, it's a meal on the front and a couple of liveners at the Red Lion for me, looking enviously at the groups of lads egging each other on to down their ridiculous measure of vodka and orange in one.

That - and more - is what I have to look forward to as you read this dear readers and I'm sorry to gloat, but it has been a long time coming.

You don't get this excited about a couple of nights in Wales!