Don't ask me why - despite both sets of children being all grown up, we still manage to engineer our annual week away in the very midst of the madness that is school holiday season.

Past horrors wasting precious moments in an airport departure lounge meant we opted for a ten-hour drive across France, accompanied by Johnny Cash and occasionally Billy Bragg in the back seat.

As you'd expect, our holidays are all about the food and somehow holiday food always tastes different. From the tea that doesn't carry across the channel, the beans that were heated on a one ring Primus stove on a campsite in Mablethorpe to the bread and cheese eaten on a picnic rug in the grounds of Lourmarin castle. Relaxation and, if you're lucky, a touch of sun are the added ingredients to make any meal sparkle.

People tend to a go a bit mad on their jolly holidays, filling their car boots with cases of great value wine from a vineyard they just happened to stumble on, only to discover it's the climate, the setting and a very persuasive wine maker who's convinced them it will taste the same in Bowthorpe as it does in Burgundy. We're no different, buying eight different pressings of a olive oil to put on my spaghetti: I've still got them in my cupboard but that won't stop me restocking when I'm on vacation mode. The car will no doubt hum on the journey home with a selection of ripe cheese which will be embalmed in cling film as they die a slow lingering death in a fridge in NR2. It's a bit like an edible version of the ubiquitous Spanish straw donkey in the 70s.

Whether it's doughnuts on Great Yarmouth seafront, a crab sandwich in Blakeney harbour, a bottle of rose under the skies of the South of France or an all-day breakfast in an Irish pub in Ibiza - holiday food always tastes better when you're on holiday! As I write, we're staying overnight in Dijon in a hotel opposite the original Maille mustard shop, so I'm off to buy two dozen jars of the yellow stuff, just in case the Unthank Road Co op has run out. It'll taste different, though, won't it? This one's from France.