No matter how old I get, new life experiences just keep on coming, and I keep seeking them out.

I’ve figured it is the best way to keep feeling young.

I have just returned from a lovely week in Tenerife, which was the first ‘winter sun’ holiday we have ever taken, and also our first time on any of the Canary Islands.

For the duration of the holiday I hired a bike - the first time I had done so for more than a single day - and when I rode it up a proper mountain (as opposed to mere hills), that was a first, too.

There was a much bigger first for us, though, and it was going all-inclusive, a style of holiday we had never chosen before.

I like to joke that the four sweetest words in the English language are ‘all you can eat’, but - to be frank - being tempted by endless food and drink, virtually 24/7, was quite overwhelming.

There were dozens of different things to choose from at every meal, and endless side dishes, so thousands of permutations, and several things I had never eaten before.

But while trying new things and experiencing firsts is something I am usually keen to do, for some reason the opposite applies when it comes to food.

I have eaten a lot of different things in my life, but I now know what I like - and I am sticking to it.

In our all-inclusive hotel, therefore, I turned my nose up at trying caviar and sushi for the first time. I am hardly going to like raw fish when I don’t even like it when it’s cooked.

So I am what some people like to call a fussy eater.

It is a phrase that they usually mean as an insult, with the implication that it is being childish, but I always take it as a huge compliment.

After all, unless you haven’t progressed beyond picking berries off trees, meals can only be achieved by applying an organised and creative mind, which is to say food preparation is not a science, but an art.

Imagine if those people who will gladly eat anything that is put in front of them took the same approach to other forms of art, such as music. Surely they would be embarrassed to tell you that they will stomach any old noise?

Yet they are disparaging of people like me, effectively because we are more discerning.

The same people will also invariably tell you that they love sushi or prefer their steaks rare, as if that is something to be proud of too, and look down their noses if you tell them you like your food well done.

What they don’t seem to realise is that cooking meat (and cooking it well) is a process that is exclusive to only the most advanced species out of the thousands on the planet. In other words: it is what separates us from the beasts and - more importantly - the French.

I have also noticed that the more food that someone likes, the keener they are for you to eat stuff that you patently don’t like.

For example, I see no reason to waste a second of my short life eating certain pointless vegetables, yet I have lost count of the people who are absolutely appalled when I tell them I would rather eat dirt.

And even after you have told them this, they always persist.

So, to sum up: life is an interesting rollercoaster of new things, but there are far too many people in the world who want to give you their recipe for butternut squash soup.