Sir Paul McCartney made the best of his recent ill health as the break from work allowed him to spend more time with his wife and take his first proper vacation in years.

The Beatles legend was hospitalised in Japan in May (14) after he fell sick with a virus, prompting him to cancel the rest of his Asian tour and push back his planned dates in the U.S.

MCCartney returned to his native U.K. to recover, and was later pictured bouncing back to health on a sun-soaked vacation with his wife Nancy Shevell in Ibiza, Spain before restarting his American tour on 5 July (14).

The 72-year-old musician has now revealed he actually enjoyed his sick leave as he relished the chance to rest and recuperate.

He tells Rolling Stone, "People say to me, 'Aw, that must have been terrible for you.' Well, no, actually. No one ever tells me to rest! It was like summer holidays in school or something. I thought, 'Yeah, I can get into that'. I just took it really easy at home in England..."

MCCartney reveals he had time to read a film script written by his son, experiment with some new music, and take up jogging before heading off on a vacation.

He adds, "My son-in-law had a film script - plenty of time to read that. I started jogging a bit. The weather was great, so that was cool. And then I went into my recording studio and did some music that I didn't have to do, some experimental stuff. That was a really nice musical awakening, and it made me feel better... One part of this rest program was, I said to Nancy, 'Hey, we can take a holiday! A real holiday, where we go away.' So we went away to Ibiza."