I have no experience of what it is like to be hit with a sledgehammer but it cannot compare with toothache.

IT was still dark when we left the house a couple of Sunday mornings ago. The tram to the airport was more or less empty and for once Princes Street had been abandoned by shoppers. In a few hours we would be on a flight bound for Rome and as afternoon ebbed into evening we would be ensconced in our rather pukka hotel and looking forward to a glass of prosecco with which to toast the start of our holiday.

It was an alluring prospect. On our itinerary we had the Umbrian hill town of Spoleto, where there is not much more to do than eat and ruminate, and Venice, about which no one can say anything that hasn’t been said before.

Just thinking about it made me feel tearful. In my dreams I saw carafes overflowing with chianti and plates piled high with steaming pasta to which clung barnacles of bolognese. All outstanding work had been cleared and anyone emailing us would receive an out-of-office reply.

I felt like a victim of a miscarriage of justice who’d been newly released after decades protesting his innocence.

Readers with elephantine memories may recall our last jaunt to Italy. Then, we had gone to Siena, and promptly fallen ill, possibly with the Tuscan equivalent of Delhi belly.

As we tossed and turned and emptied the contents of our stomachs, I wailed “why me?”. Stoical I was not. Long days were spent in bed turning like a beast on a spit and watching the Tour D’Italia in lieu of staring at the ceiling.

To compound our misery it was freshers’ week and the cafe immediately below our bedroom window was a gathering point for the local youths many of whom, it seemed, were at the early stage of learning to play the trumpet. In comparison, I thought, I’d rather have my fingernails extracted.

When I asked the hotel receptionist what might be done to ease our agony, he shrugged. Siena, I have since learned, is that kind of place. We tourists are there merely on sufferance.

Time, however, had healed all of those wounds and only a few unsightly scars remained. My sole worry was inside my mouth. For the past several days I’d had

I have no experience of what it is like to be hit with a sledgehammer but it cannot compare with full blown toothache

toothache which had been kept at bay with a cocktail of painkillers and antibiotics. At my request, the dentist took a look at the problem, shuddered perceptibly, and pronounced me fit to travel.

He also gave me a generous supply of drugs which, he said, should see me right if the pain recurred.

On my return, he would investigate further and if the beastly tooth was still proving troublesome he would give it what for. At which point, he bade me “buon viaggio” and went back to Golf Monthly.

But while it abated, the pain was constant and reached screaming pitch whenever I foolishly ate anything hot or cold. There must be easier ways to lose weight.

In the airport lounge, I added a croissant to my diet of paracetamol. I have no experience of what it is like to be hit with a sledgehammer but it cannot compare with full blown toothache.

My face, I was affectionately told, had gone the colour of tripe. Numbness, meanwhile, spread across my body like a shadow and my thoughts turned to that clinic in Switzerland where people go to say cheerio.

It was then that we were informed that our plane was boarding and that we should go to the departure gate. It was make your mind up time. It did not take long. The thought of landing in Rome with the urgent need to find a dentist did not fill me with joy.

There was nothing for it but to inform the British Airways’ staff and head for home, which we did.

A day later, the terror of a tooth paid for the havoc it had caused. It came out like a plug and I was offered the chance to keep it as a trophy, possibly in a glass case with the Faberge eggs and Cartier diamonds. I declined.

Instead, I called British Airways, cancelled the return flights, and asked if we were eligible for compensation.

Indeed, we were. The flights cost €271.94. Once a penalty – for what? – has been deducted (€208) and a “channel fee” (€60) I can expect to receive €3.94. Whoop-de-doo!