THERE'S never a good time to get your bank card declined, but standing in the lobby of a Spanish hotel, trying to pay for a week's stay on the night before you fly back to Britain, is up there with the worst of them.

You try to look nonchalant and unconcerned, but inside you're boiling with so much rage and embarrassment that when you try to produce another card with an air of relaxed resignation, the entire contents of your purse tumble to the floor for the entertainment of the suspicious reception staff and the smirking queue behind you.

You manage to scrape up your credit card (brought with you just in case) and, after a heart-stopping 20 seconds, you get your transaction approved and you can relax knowing you won't be spending the winter washing dishes.

This is an especially infuriating scenario if, just before your holiday, you took your new card into your new bank to check that it would be okay to use abroad. You couldn't say why, you just had a funny feeling something might happen, given that it was a new card, from a new bank. You wonder if the computers might think something strange was going on if a transaction popped up in Spain when you're from York, but: "Oh no, there should be no problem. It's a Visa card, you'll be able to use it," says the assistant, smiling indulgently at your naïve anxiety.

You wish you had her home phone number right now. God knows what people do if they actually trust banks to hand over their money when it's needed. I might have been one of them if I hadn't already had a series of run-ins over my wonderful new account.

I blame the Other Half. After all, he was the one who insisted I switch banks to get six per cent interest on my money.

Being a financial Neanderthal, I'd had my cash in the same bank for 28 years, largely out of gratitude to a long-retired manager who decided not to cut me off without a penny when I was a spendthrift student.

I'd never had a reason to complain about their service, but greed and nagging eventually took their toll and back in June I decided to desert my old mates in favour of this apparently more generous organisation who were even going to transfer my direct debits for me.

It is now October and the transfer is still not complete. My wage didn't go in when it was supposed to. My gym sent me a letter saying its monthly pound of flesh had failed to materialise. I went in to talk to them about it and they said they'd take it out in a fortnight's time. Three weeks later, another letter arrives. I'm spending more time down the gym than I have in months, and I'm just trying to sort out my direct debits so that when I get back in training, as of course I will, they will let me into the building.

My overdraft limit, well into four figures at my old bank, is unceremoniously cut to practically nothing on my new account. No longer being a spendthrift student, I don't actually use this facility, but that is not the point.

Then my card gets declined in Spain.

I come back from my holiday still simmering, to find a letter from Yorkshire Water telling me my direct debit has ceased and I owe them £126 to be paid by last Wednesday.

I'm just summoning the energy for the hours of Cuckoo Waltz I'm about to endure when I get on to the complaints department later today.

Six per cent, six per cent, chants my Other Half like a mantra.

Service, service, my heart replies.