I’ve just been booking a planned holiday in Avignon (a week) and Paris (three days on the way home) in February – bound to end up with clashing with something else I’m supposed to be doing, but I’ll never get away if I don’t just do it.

Looking at budget hotel ratings from visitors (yes, I’m a cheapskate, but I won’t pay more than £30 a night for a hotel room if I can possibly avoid it), I can’t help asking what some people expect for their money. I booked a hotel just down from the Moulin Rouge for £28 a night for a single. Some of the commentators thought the rooms were dingy and not as clean as they might be. Well, for the price, what do they expect?!

Yes I’m probably going to freeze in the Luberon in February, but I should get to enjoy the history without being entirely buried under floods of fellow-tourists. That’s the theory, anyway.