THEY will say a lot of things about me when I am dead, but one thing they will never say is I liked things to be tidy.

My wife, especially. For years she clung to the forlorn hope that everything would one day be in its place at home, but now the poor old girl seems to have finally given up on the idea.

She should have realised I’ve always been like this. Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of our mum’s constant complaint that “It’s like Rodbourne Tip in here”.

But while most mums moan about untidy bedrooms, I seem to have a gift for making any room untidy.

In my first proper job I had to fill in for people while they were on holiday, and I think it was my ability to leave a trail of destruction on every desk I worked at that led to one of my colleagues giving me the nickname Genghis Carter. He still calls me Genghis whenever I see him.

Apart from the occasional urge to straighten a wonky picture on a wall, I am perfectly comfortable living in disorder.

But even I found the last two weeks, which we spent on holiday in Corfu, challenging.

If you haven’t been there, the name Corfu may well conjure up images of a perfect desert island, or you might confuse it with some of those impeccably manicured smaller Greek islands, carefully painted in blue and white.

But you would be wrong.

On Corfu, half the buildings looks like the builder ran out of paint. The other half look like the builder ran out of concrete.

Talking of concrete: on one drive to the stunningly beautiful but higgledy-piggledy Corfu Town, we spotted some men putting down a driveway.

As I’ve been doing a lot of that at home in recent weeks, I was interested to see how the professionals do it.

But seeing their completed work, a couple of days later, it seemed to me that while the Ancient Greeks have been described as the fathers of civilisation, their modern counterparts seem to have forgotten how to use a spirit level.

Corfu is a big island as Greek ones go, and its many coastal towns are linked by windy roads without pavements or any straight lines. On the roads there are thousands of mopeds, scooters and motorbikes, all of them with bits missing, and sometimes ridden by the whole family, all at once, including the dog.

There also seems to be an eleventh commandment among drivers in Corfu, which is: Thou shalt not wash the car.

Not surprisingly, locals drive like they are in the Wild West.

Officially they drive on the right, but not necessarily all the time.

Another notable thing about Corfu is it lies within sight of Albania, a country we might consider one of the most primitive in Europe, and not very well organised.

But when we went there on a day trip, we found that, in comparison with the chaos of Corfu, a couple of miles to the west, their seaside resort of Saranda is as if it were laid out by Capability Brown.

You might be thinking we are glad to be home, and we did, indeed, immediately see England in a new light when we landed, noticing how neat and tidy it is.

But you can’t help admiring the Greek approach to life.

Even I couldn’t cope with living in upheavel all year round, but there is nothing more refreshing and invigorating than losing yourself in a bit of chaos for two whole weeks.

So I loved it, and Corfu is my kinda place.