WE’D only got so far into our mini break ...

... as the Merthyr to Brecon roundabout when I started crying. I don’t know what it is about me and tears lately, but we seem to be best pals.

Significant (thin) Other was giving me a row – well, when I say “row” what I mean was a shake of the head, followed by some finger twitching and mild foot tapping.

Someone fancy was on the radio, a name which I hoped he wouldn’t recognise. But the man who knows what I’m thinking before my thoughts have begun, jumped on the name and started dancing around on the connection between us, saying that he was thrilled, thrilled, thrilled that I would soon be on the same celebrity panel as posh paws on Radio Wales, mixing it up with the great and the good.

Then I broke the news that I wouldn’t be going, that I’d made up an excuse (it was valid and genuine but I could have wriggled) not to go.

He was, to put it mildly, disappointed, rumbling on about the way he gets frustrated because I throw opportunities away with the dexterity of an Olympian.

“Why’ve you done it this time?” he asked me. “The Same Old S*** is it? I’m clueless as to why you have such a low opinion of yourself. You’re fabulous! I wish you’d snap out of it, you’re stopping yourself from doing so much.”

The SOS in question is my subterranean self-esteem. It’s an odd beast, fed on an abundance of carbohydrates and crusty rolls, Yorkshire puddings, Boots Shapers meals and cheese and onion pasties to shut it up.

Frankly, it all comes down to feeling unsightly. I’m not embarrassed to say this is what I think or feel. Nobody’s going to point at me, are they? Nope. And I’m not lying or saying I’ve had a gastric band. Now THAT would be something worth shouting about.

To be honest, I’m so familiar with thinking this way it’s become the norm for me.

And I think it’s all to do with the fact that I feel fat. And ugly. Fugly! Well would you look at that. Copyright Jones.

It’s not the kind of Fugly that comes from having a spot on the end of your nose, the wrong kind of shoes on or a flat hair day.

It’s an incapacitating feeling that leaves me kind of helpless. My beast of burden doesn’t stop me being who I am, or going to work or chopsing or arguing or thinking big thoughts.

Instead it’s a silent thwarter that has turned me into the most self-conscious and unsociable bugger.

And the worst thing of all? I’m entirely responsible. Me. Fugly Jones. I know it, but I can’t shake loose of it.

Most of the time, it isn’t a problem for me as I just live with it. It just IS.

But it becomes an issue when I’m asked to do stuff by friends, when I’m invited places, when I’m asked to go on a panel and just be me. And I just want to say no as it’s the easier option. Because then, I don’t have to worry about what to wear, or anticipate the fall-out by well-intentioned others who simply don’t get this side of me and tussle with me when I say I’d rather not do something.

I was thinking about this while sitting in a café in New Quay, just past Plwmp. Talk about being haunted by your body image.

Convincing myself that I think better while either smoking a cigarette and drinking a latte or stuffing my face, I took the opportunity while S(t)O was off taking pictures to order a bacon roll on the sly (it was less than an hour after breakfast after all) to help with my mental ruminating.

I was about to dig into my notion of Fugly (and a crispy bacon roll), thinking that if nobody saw me doing it I wasn’t really eating, when he came round the corner just as the waitress was delivering my sneaky treat.

As ever, S(t)O didn’t chastise me, or venture any kind of opinion in fact – I got in there first anyway.

But it all went horribly wrong because not only was I caught out, when I opened the roll to check on the fat content it had butter on it. Butter! Who the hell puts butter on a bacon roll? It should be a mortal sin.

So he ate it, enjoying every mouthful as it didn’t taste of guilt – while my interpretation of it backfired, leaving me empty in more ways than one again.

I avoided Plwmp on the way back home. And butter on bacon rolls as soon as I got in. But the jury’s still out on whether I can shake off Fugly.