THOSE of us who co-habit with their HABs (husbands and boyfriends) know there's nothing nicer than those rare occasions when you've got the house to yourself for the evening.
The drill goes something like this: arrive home from work, get straight into your pyjama bottoms, turn the heating up (even I admit, us girls are always cold) and settle down to your preferred non man-friendly telly programme (any of the soaps, America's Next Top Model, 10 Years Younger, How to Look Good Naked, repeats of Sex and the City on Paramount . . . you get the idea).
When you get a bit peckish you can simply raid the fridge and create a nice mix-and-match tea.
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Cobbling together a meal when you've got nobody to please but yourself (and nobody watching you) is one of life's little pleasures.
One of my favourites is to take a large plate and fill it with a selection of Doritos, bite-size chunks of cheese, a Pepperami chopped into pieces, a scattering of cherry tomatoes, and a dollop of potato salad all topped with peri peri hot sauce. Hmmm.
Weird? Yes. Disgusting? Very possibly. But I'm not alone in this.
Ask any food-lover and I bet they'll admit to a guilty secret food combination that they love eating when no-one else is around (and maybe when they haven't been to the supermarket for a while).
Personally, I got into weird food combinations after nearly starving myself on an incredibly strict calorie-controlled diet.
I think my taste buds must have rebelled at being fed cucumber sandwiches and Slim-a-soups for weeks and I went overnight from someone who couldn't stand hot food to a person who craved anything spicy or strongly flavoured.
You can catch the bug in lots of different ways though.
I have a friend who grew up in a household where his mum worked night shifts and so it was left to his dad to make tea.
As soon as mum's car pulled out of the driveway the kitchen descended into a free-for-all with the kind of food experiments that would make even those of the strongest constitution green around the gills.
Even now he considers a tin of plum tomatoes with chopped carrots in it and some chilli powder, blasted in the microwave, an acceptable meal.
But he was the one who introduced me to fish pie with hula hoops on the top, so it's swings and roundabouts.
If you have no idea what I'm on about you're missing out.
I suggest you go home tonight and tear up your recipe books (metaphorically) and get creative.
Good combos to get you started are crackers with cheese and a spoonful of strawberry jam; ready salted crisps with a Kit Kat (in the same mouthful) and mashed banana on tuna butties.
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