I’M dreading my next visit to the barber’s. Don’t get me wrong, Stu does a fantastic job of marshalling my diminishing number of grey hairs into some semblance of style. But he’s bound to ask me where I went for my holidays. And this year I didn’t.

I had booked a couple of weeks’ holiday intending to head off to a campsite in whatever part of the country pretended to rain slightly less. But things didn’t work out: family commitments and unavoidable appointments meant that we had to stay put. Which means that when I return to ‘real life’ I’ll be different from others.

“Did you go away anywhere nice?” the obligatory question will greet my return to work. To which will be added “Well, you’ve certainly caught the sun!” as no one seems to remember that I’m usually this colour.

“No, had to cancel this year; I spent two weeks at home instead,” is a bit of a conversation stopper. And the family issues that caused me to cancel aren’t really any of their business, so whatever I say will inevitably leave them feeling awkward. I could always change jobs, hairdressers, or let my hair grow – but that seems a bit drastic. I will just have to resign myself to their questioning, pitying looks… At New Year, the situation was reversed. My brother was just completing a few years working in Dubai and invited us to join him for his last New Year out there. So while everyone else was munching antacids and resolving to lose weight, my son and I grabbed a couple of last minute flights and arrived just in time to see Dubai’s famous New Year’s fireworks.

Our time on the beach, in water parks or out in the desert at night hunting scorpions, was made all the more satisfying by reading about the cold, grey miserable weather the UK was ‘enjoying’ while we were away.

The self-satisfied feeling that accompanied us as we arrived back, tanned and rested was short lived. My reply to the question “How was your Christmas?” (“It was fabulous, the weather was perfect, we swam in the warm sea, lay on a hot deserted beach, ate delicious food in local Arabic restaurants.”) drew contemptuous and envious looks. I pretty soon learned that if I wanted to keep the good will of my colleagues or any conversation going, it was better not to mention our trip.

It’s never easy swimming against the tide. Hard to be the one doing it; and sometimes hard for others to understand. As if your different actions somehow call theirs into question.

Small wonder then, that if not going (or going) on holiday causes a few raised eyebrows, we sometimes struggle to accommodate the much more fundamental differences of religion and belief that define us.