The summer holidays are almost here, and for some of us that means one of the most stressful times of the year.

I have read about what can happen when couples are forced to spend 24 hours a day with each other, causing unbearable strain on their relationship.

And I will shortly be jetting off to the sun with my wife. Just the two of us. For two whole weeks.

I have to be frank and say that when it comes to holidays (and if I may sink to using a slang term here), she does my head in.

We still get on amazingly well after nearly 32 years of marriage, and always love our time away, apart from one aspect, and at the risk of making sweeping generalisations about gender here, I think it is something that mostly applies to females.

If the ladies in your life are anything like my wife, they, too, will make a completely unnecessary fuss about packing their cases.

For a start, she thinks it is going to take far longer than it actually does.

If anybody asks her about the holiday in the last month before it happens, the only thing she will say is that it’s so awful because she hasn’t packed anything yet.

And this is even though she has put aside the whole day, on the eve of the journey, to carry out this difficult operation.

I reckon I could do it in 15 minutes and still have time to make a cup of tea in the middle.

And her stress levels won’t come down to normal until we have landed, arrived at our accommodation, opened the cases and discovered that, despite all the worry, we haven’t left any vital items at home, a fear that has kept her awake throughout the whole flight.

This year there is the added stress that we have decided to forego the option of a large case in the hold, restricting ourselves to the free bags that go in the cabin, partly because it is an (albeit tiny) reduction in our carbon footprint, but mainly because I hate paying for something if it can be avoided.

In one way this plan is less stressful, because checking-in luggage to go in the hold only introduces the potential for it to arrive at a different airport to us, fulfilling her worst nightmare.

But it does mean we aren’t able to take large quantities of liquid toiletries, so will have to visit a supermarket, just prior to checking in to our accommodation.

More stress.

When we were shopping the other day, she spotted some sun cream and started to fret.

“What if we get there and find we can’t buy any? We won’t be able to go out.”

I asked her if she had forgotten where we are going to, and didn’t she think they had already thought to make sun cream available in Spain?

I see having only small bags as an exercise in taking only the minimum required, and being prepared to wash some stuff, halfway through the holiday.

My wife, on the other hand, sees the challenge as trying to stuff into a small case all the unnecessary clothes she is planning to take, including no less than six (no exaggeration) pairs of shoes, and two wooly jumpers to protect herself against the threat of a freezing Spanish summer.

“If only there was some way to avoid all this stress,” she said.

“Wait,” I said. “I may have an idea for next year,” reaching for the iPad.

And that was when I discovered that if you put ‘naturist holidays’ into Google, you get 837,000 results.