I don't exactly know what came over me in the supermarket but halfway round the aisles I found myself reaching for something neither I, nor people who know me, would ever thought I would be seen dead with in my possession. Let me explain. I don't like air fresheners. I see no point in filling the air with chemical copies of the real thing. I especially dislike plug-in ones, and have been known to turn them off, even in other people's houses. Actually I shouldn't have made that confession, because it will now solve the mystery for some people as to why their vanilla and magnolia scented plug-in was mysteriously turning itself off at intervals – intervals, which they now realise, coincided with my visits. I don't know why I have such an antipathy to the things, but I agree with someone who once made me laugh by saying that if you had a bad smell and sprayed an air freshener all it did was to give you a bad smell in a rose garden. Actually he didn't say bad smell, but I'll have to be polite. So why was I drawn to a half-price automatic airspray in Morrisons? You tell me. I was tired, it was hot, it seemed a good idea at the time. You know the sort. It's advertised on television by a small child who insists on counting the number of times it automatically puffs its smell out. He's a very irritating child. If he was mine he'd be superglued to the naughty stair for the afternoon if he didn't shut up. I bought the thing, took it home and assembled it. It needs batteries, which were included, and it said to 'slide' the casing off. Now, in my experience, things never exactly slide off anything, more like needing to be wrenched off with brute force. And so it proved, but I only broke one fingernail. I inserted the batteries, carried on reading the instructions which said, 'avert face away from nozzle' and I just managed to avert my face as a dose of lavender whistled past my ear. All in all, quite successful. There's always a down side and I discovered it that very day. I heard the unmistakable sound of the cat throwing up. Anyone who follows this column may have read before that the ginger cat has a penchant for throwing up. There is no apparent reason why he will eat a plate of food, throw it up within minutes and then, with no ill effects, ask for more food which he will eat with relish and keep it down. If he were a child you'd probably say it was attention seeking. Come to think of it, if it's a cat it's probably attention seeking, especially when you hear the sound but can't find the evidence, so he gains a lot of attention. His offerings can appear in many places, sometimes when you do an unexpected slalom down the hall, sometimes neatly deposited behind a flower pot, on one occasion kindly filling one of my gardening shoes. He's not a cat who can't be said not to seek new fields and he never gives a clue as to where his gift is deposited, having an air of innocence about his furry person. So, when I heard the throwing up sound I searched, but in vain. The cat wasn't anywhere to be seen. Neither was he when the next four throwing up sounds happened, and he hadn't been fed lately anyway. Perhaps he'd been out shopping for a vole. It was only when I stood next to the sink and the thing from outer lavender land let out its next puff – it does it every three, six, 18 or 30 minutes, you choose – that I realised that the sound it makes, a sort of huffing wheezy asthmatic sound, was an exact copy of the throwing up sound I know so well. Now I have to cope with throwing up sounds every 18 minutes and maybe, just maybe, a genuine one sometime in between. Only the smell of lavender, as opposed to Whiskas rabbit in jelly, will give me a clue.

It's peak holiday time, which means it's postcard time, plopping through the door at regular intervals. Don't you think sending postcard is a bit odd? They usually go to people who know perfectly well where you are for two weeks, you've been boring them about your holiday plans for months, so why do they need reminding? And if you send them to people who you don't see that often, aren't they a kind of crowing? A sort of 'I'm sitting on a beach sipping a cocktail watching the Indian ocean lapping the sands and you're sitting sweltering in a hot office or stuck in a traffic jam on the A38, so ya boo sucks!' They're a pain anyway. You have to buy the cards, find stamps, find a post office, think of something witty to say. It eats into your holiday time. And then they probably won't get there until you've returned home or back to work and you have the embarrassment of seeing a rather rude postcard, which seemed so amusing when accompanied by a couple of jugs of Sangria, arrive on a rainy Monday morning. It's the same with buying gifts and/or souvenirs. There's nothing wrong with modest gifts for family, especially children. I'm extremely grateful for my cat mug my daughter has just brought me back from Crete and even more grateful for the duty frees. But some go over the top, spending large chunks of holiday cash and time traipsing round gift shops, getting more and more stressed because they can't think of anything for Aunt Freda or Cousin Arthur, or wondering whether the neighbour two doors down will like a replica lighthouse in shells, is pointless. So, too, are most holiday souvenirs. Oh, we all fall for them. Somewhere in my house is a camel leaking sand. That was, at least, made in its country of origin. Most souvenirs are now made in Taiwan or more likely mainland China. So rather than lug something home from Torremolinos you might as well buy it in Torquay. Somewhere just south of Bejing there will be factories churning out ashtrays with 'welcome to Scunthorpe' on them, next to a line of similar ashtrays with 'welcome to Sorrento', along with similar fridge magnets, hideous national costume dolls and plastic paperweights containing what appears to be someone's gallstones. The Chinese must think we have absolutely no taste whatsoever and our homes are awash with ill-matched knick- knacks. I'm not particularly sentimental – oh, you've noticed – so I don't particularly need a polystyrene model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa to remind me where I spent my holidays two years ago. I once spent two weeks in Lourdes, not for religious reasons but because we were staying with friends, and was astonished at range of St Bernadette souvenirs. You could have furnished your table entirely with St Bernadette plates, cutlery, napkins, tablecloths, candle holders, and even little salt and pepper shakers with holes in the top of her head. One of the most enduring souvenirs, which, come on admit it, we've all bought at one time or another, is the Spanish straw donkey. In various sizes, the donkeys wore a jaunty straw hat and a red felt saddle and bridle and, no matter how carefully you chose when you bought, they never, ever, stood up without falling over again. When you got them home you always had to lean them against something, like a drunken sailor. They still turn up at car boot sales, looking sad and dusty and going for 10p a piece. One of the funniest sights I've ever seen at an airport was at Malaga. As I've said, the donkeys came in many sizes, including a giant one which you'd look at and laugh, thinking that nobody in their right mind would ever buy it. But, on this trip, someone had, and a small man staggered across the concourse carrying the big one, which was the size of a Shetland pony. Behind him trotted his wife. The crowd parted as they sailed through to check- in, and we all waited with bated breath for what was inevitable. The check-in girl shook her head, the couple argued, another assistant joined them. Airlines were more flexible in those days but even then there was obviously no way they would accept a souvenir in the cabin which would need a seat of its own. We couldn't hear what was being said, but there was a lot of shaking of heads and then the check-in girl ripped off a luggage label, leaned over and fixed it round the donkey's neck and the last we saw of him he was sailing down the belt towards the hold. Of course, he fell over within seconds and was lying flat on his back with his legs in the air, hat askew, as he went through the curtain.