In my youth I believed that to go on holiday abroad was to acquire glamour. All it would take was one week in a sunny European resort, an immersion in strangers, and I would be granted access to it. Become liberated from my homeliness, small-town experiences, from the daily sense of making do with hand-me-downs, bland food, the thudding boredom of schooling. I perceived glamour as terrific ease in the world, erudition and imagination, with no labour or artifice to my conversation, mannerisms and style. A polishing of what was latent within. In this way, travelling abroad seemed to parallel the idea I had of romantic love, that it was my destiny, and with it I would step into a truer self. I wanted to be like one of the kids at school, who after a break would walk back into classes with streaks in their hair from the sun, skin pale around their eyes from wearing sunglasses, with the swagger of chaste holiday romances. A temporary celebrity in the playground. My own family holidays were infrequent, domestic and unphotogenic.