When we first arrived at our exotic Caribbean holiday destination I identified the poolside as the spot where we would spend most of the week. However, we were soon drawn to the beach from where everyone watched the huge waves while sunbathing.

On our last day we witnessed the swell grow bigger and bigger. Just how far would the water reach on this occasion? Were the boats in the bay safe?

For some reason TPR and I popped back to our room just at the point of high tide. By the time we came back to where we had been sunbathing we found all our belongings had been burnt black by the force of the water. The picnic bag and library books were destroyed, and I’d never be able to use my cycling helmet again.

We spotted two dead bodies stretched out on the sand near to our spot. One was a drowned teenage girl. The other, just a couple of paces away, wore a green T shirt over a red bikini. “Don’t look!” shouted TPR, but I did and discovered that the second dead body was mine.

The only consolation of coming face-to-face with my own corpse was to appreciate – at last – that I was not fat after all, but actually reasonably slim for a middle-aged woman.