It's a rare day when both I and my long-suffering dentist husband Steve are away from the drills and the mouthrinse together, when all three children are at school.

Back in the time BC (before children) days like this were not hard to organise; in fact nothing was.

But nowadays time off has to be saved for school plays, sports days or school holidays.

And to be honest, we’re just not organised enough to co-ordinate some time together without a last-minute distraction of something unexpected cropping up at work.

It wasn’t until last Tuesday evening, we realised that the stars had aligned and by a twist of fate we had a day at home together, with free childcare thrown into the bargain.

The only problem with this was that (much to my husband’s surprise) I usually have a list as long as my arm of things that need sorting and, with only 12 hours’ notice, some of these things just couldn’t be rearranged.

In preparation for the arrival of 16 members of our family to celebrate the 80th birthday of my father-in-law I couldn’t be swayed in the plan of attack that I’d prepared, and there is sadly a limit to the number of jobs that can be squeezed into a six-hour school day.

As many parents know, sometimes it’s possible for whole weeks to go by and the only conversation that you’ve had with your husband is based solely around logistics.

Who’s doing what, where they have to be and what they need with them.

In the hamster wheel more commonly known as family life, time flies by in a flurry of Post-it notes.

With a list of essential jobs but the tempting opportunity to spend some time actually having a proper conversation about stuff not related to children or teeth, we decided to kill two birds with one stone and crack on through the list together.

We even optimistically factored in an hour for lunch somewhere that didn’t serve kids’ meals or provide crayons and colouring sheets. Our first stop was Costco, the discount aircraft hangar filled with stuff you either don’t need or want but can’t resist.

It seems to be an impossibility to exit the shop without items like a year’s supply of pitta bread, a discounted table tennis table or a large furry throw.

We’ve been seduced by the Costco offerings on many an occasion but there’s no denying, when catering for a houseful it’s a cracking place to start.

But this time, after a ridiculous amount of time spent perusing the shelves, we left with 40 croissants, a dressing gown and a chicken and leek pie, wondering whether our precious time off together could have been spent a little more wisely.

Following the bargain theme, next stop was Aldi, the closest supermarket and purveyor of some of the finest imitation brands on offer in the UK.

No home is complete with a jar of unpronounceable foreign pickles, and although it took a while to convince Steve, he relented.

Despite my pointing out to him that he should be pleased that I keep a grip on the family finances by shopping around, it was quite hard to convince him that spending a morning pushing a trolley with a squeak and a wonky wheel around Aldi was a fulfilling use of time off.

My major mistake was not warning him about the rocket speed check-outs that don’t allow time to pack the shopping into bags.

After he created a major disturbance by arguing with the checkout attendant about the speed of her beeping, I realised I had pushed it too far. We may have procured a couple of bags of peanuts at a knockdown price, but at what cost?

With no time left for the relaxing lunch, we headed home forlornly, having spent more money on petrol than we’d saved on the croissants.

We did at least have a chance to chat in the process but I’m not sure we’ll be repeating the experience too soon.

For now, it’s back to work and conversations about after-school activities and dental implants.

Time off is just not all it’s cracked up to be.

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