LAST week, I couldn’t help recalling the time we went on a half-term holiday abroad with all the boys, ages ranging from one to 11 years old.

In the queue at the airport, the baby was crying while two of the older boys squabbled, another complained he needed the toilet and, laden down with changing bags, a buggy and various rucksacks, I’d just realised we’d left a favourite toy at security.

A plummy-voiced man, wearing a linen suit and a Panama hat, looked us up and down disdainfully as he nudged his elegantly dressed wife and two of their child-free friends and sneered: "Oh dear. It looks like we’re on the kindergarten flight."

I’ve never forgotten how that man made me feel, as if I and my brood were a repulsive piece of dog dirt he had just picked up on his shoe.

I thought of him again as we boarded a plane recently, because this was the first time we – me and my husband – were going away during the school holidays on our own.

With our youngest on a school trip, his older brother at university and the other three now in the world of work, we only had ourselves to think about.

Remembering the man in the linen suit, I smiled supportively at parents struggling with crotchety, crying babies, squabbling infants or surly teenagers. But it was a relief not to still be in the thick of it.

For the first time in more than 25 years, we were able to enjoy a half-term holiday wandering around cathedrals, museums and art galleries without being accused of child cruelty by our sullen spawn.

We could aimlessly wander, soaking up the atmosphere and hanging out in cool cafes and bars withough anyone tugging at our sleeves, demanding food, money or a return to the hotel so they could use the wifi.

When we came across a theme park at the top of a hill reached by a funicular cable car – the sort of thing the boys would love – we were able to merrily walk on by.

Similarly, we were able to give the ‘world class’ aquarium, rated by our guide book as one of the top five attractions in the area, a miss. With the boys in tow, we would never have been able to escape the horrors of the 360-degree shark tunnel.

Instead, we spent three hours – three soothingly restful hours – at a quiet spa on the beach, enjoying steam rooms, saunas and jet water hydro-massages, followed by early evening gin and tonics.

Relaxed, refreshed and totally chilled out, we were about to board the ‘kindergarten flight’ – full of parents and children – home when we were told that because of a technical fault, our plane was delayed.

We were held at the gate, without immediate access to toilets or water, for two hellishly long hours. There were families with understandably tetchy, squabbling and tearful youngsters, doing their best to cope in a difficult situation. And, as always, there were those tut-tutting and complaining under their breath about the racket, while they shot the poor, exhausted parents withering looks.

Given the choice, I know who I would rather sit next to on a crowded half-term plane. And it wouldn’t be someone wearing a linen suit and a condescending sneer.

ALDI has knocked Waitrose off top spot as Britain’s favourite supermarket, which doesn’t surprise me.

But I don’t think the consistently cheaper prices and increasingly high-quality produce are the only things drawing shoppers in their droves.

What I love about our local Aldi is that I get in and out so quickly, completing the weekly shop – one of my least favourite activities – in half the time it takes me in the bigger supermarkets.

No loyalty cards and time-consuming customers searching for vouchers in their purses in the queue.

No time wasted calculating the benefits and drawbacks of a multitude of apparently ‘special’ offers, which usually involve buying additional items you don’t want or need. And no irritating malfunctioning self-service tills. The prices are the icing on top.