Well, if this is true then my partner is now somewhere in the vicinity of my big toe. She took a wrong turning with a tuna mornay and then continued to go in the wrong direction with a fisherman’s curried bean soup and a antipodean sweet and sour spaghetti Bolognese.

Moving to Tuscany, a land where food is nearly a second religion doesn’t seem to have helped. She has taken an aversion to pasta and therefore every time she sees a signpost pointing in that direction she does a sort of U turn, goes in the opposite direction or worse decides to create a new track and go bush.

On these occasions I have had to call the emergency services, and over the years various culinary search and rescue teams armed with the latest recipe maps and gastronomic navigational equipment have bravely travelled gruelling distances over potentially dangerous and uncharted terrain in vain attempts to find her taste buds.

The kids and I have even offered to do all of the cooking, and wash up afterwards, but to no avail, she likes cooking, which is fine, but we just can’t understand why she has to cook for our stomachs as well.

Still, I can’t grumble, I am a better father for it, I have never needed to smack or tell of my kids. Just the threat that I would let mummy cook the evening meal was enough to bring them to order.

Over the years I have developed a few techniques to minimize the damage

• Forget to do the shopping (this helps reduce the ammunition available)
• Try and get a friend to invite you out for dinner
• Try to get a friend to invite her out for dinner (you still have to cook but who cares)
• Invite someone over for dinner – (This eliminates the experimental dishes)
• Always celebrate important occasions at a good restaurant (Birthdays, Wedding anniversary, Day of the week we met, Days of the week the kids were born)
• And most importantly never ever admit that you are hungry!!!

So there you have it, the way to a mans heart is through his stomach, still she does come from down under and is probably reading the map upside-down.