‘we go on holidaywith the money we save on food’

Within minutes of being introduced at a mutual friend’s 21st birthday, me and Rob, then 20, were cackling with laughter. It was December 1999 and I was charmed by Rob’s humorous side, only it wasn’t just his personality that was larger than life. Rob had curves, but while he wasn’t exactly slim, he was gorgeous with kind eyes, and as we drank our beers and teased each other with flirty banter, I knew he was someone special.

I soon learned that Rob, who worked in catering, had a big passion for food and while I struggled to rustle up meat and two veg, he could whip us up amazing creamy curries and delicious cheesy pastas in no time.

‘This is terrible,’ Rob gasped after tasting some pork chops I’d made us a few months into our relationship. ‘Told you,’ I groaned. Bursting into laughter, Rob reached for his phone and minutes later, he was ordering Chinese. Eating together quickly became our thing and every Thursday we’d go to our favourite steak house, gorging on ribs, wings and burgers, all washed down with red wine.

By the time we’d moved in together in 2004, I’d shot up a good few dress sizes, from a 10 to a 16 and Rob had put on a few pounds, too. Only, neither of us really cared – after all, we were enjoying ourselves. I did worry about the money we were spending, though. ‘Look how much we’ve spent,’ I said to Rob one day when our weekly food shop was over £170. By now Rob worked in recruitment and I worked in the health service, so it wasn’t like we had a lot of spare cash, but what we did have went on meals out, takeaways, trips to the pub and our food shop, which always included six bottles of red wine at £7 a pop.

‘I wish we could save for a rainy day,’ I’d groan after sitting down with Rob, going over our monthly budget. ‘We’ll get better,’ he vowed, only, we never did. Of course, when we had our sons Liam, in March 2008, and Tommy, in December 2012, we tightened our belts, but only metaphorically, and food was still a big part of our lives. We enjoyed regular fry-ups, pub lunches and boozy nights in, and loved a party.

Cheese-and-wine nights at our place were a firm favourite and pizza nights at our friends’ when we had babysitters.

We were known as the fun couple, but looking back, it was a bit of a cover-u