I’m standing in an hotel bedroom in Porlock, the village with arguably the steepest hill in England, watching my husband climb into about 20 kilos of walking gear.

When he suggested we spend our 32nd wedding anniversary by the seaside, I assumed he was speaking English. I was thinking sand, sun and seagulls. But now I realise my mistake.

He was speaking Mannish. He honestly believed that my idea of celebrating more than three decades of mildly irritable yet reasonably harmonious marital relations would be to succumb to the pain of dragging my ageing body up the side of a hill.

We were here in February, and I’d assumed that my reaction to his compulsory walking trips then – tears and tantrums – were a strong enough clue that I don’t like walking. Not uphill, anyway.

Going to the fridge, or even making my way to the car, is fine. But putting my body through the sort of grief that’s normally the preserve of Olympic medallists is not my idea of a great weekend.

I look at him in his walking socks and walking trousers with his walking map and wet walking gear stuffed in his rucksack and think, just walk away now.

In less than an hour’s time, if I join him on this sojourn, we will at best not be speaking and I may be mentally totting up the cost of an uncontested divorce.

So I tell him. I know it’s our wedding anniversary. And I know marriage is all about give and take. So you can take a running jump.

To give him his due, he takes this news very well, and I catch a note of relief in his voice as he agrees to respect my decision to sit on a beach, rather than stomp about in the woods getting bitten by gnats and adders.

We walk a little way out together, and then he takes the high road and I take the low one, and we agree to meet much later near a pub.

I look up at the wooded cliffs as I walk along the road and onto the pebbles, but can’t spot him, and then I turn towards the sea and get out my binoculars.

There’s plenty of activity at the sea shore – a heron is bullying some smaller birds and every so often I spot something black which I initially suspect is a seal but always turns out to be seaweed – but I only start getting really excited when I train the glasses on the horizon.

There’s a plane about to land on the opposite shore, and I realise with delight that across the channel is Cardiff airport – and the housing estate where I grew up.

When I was small, I used to stand on my bed, peering out at the long silver machines that moved across sky, ready to land at the airport a couple of miles away.

They never flapped their wings. They had no scaffolding to hold them up. Every evening I knew that it must be only a matter of time before one fell out of the sky. I felt a thrill as I spotted each one, and then relief as it approached the runway safely.

I stare through the binoculars and I’m back on the end of that bed, alternately thrilled and relieved every ten minutes or so.

I’m suddenly aware of the scrunch of pebbles and look up to see my husband. He flops down and tells me he’s walked six miles. “So what have you been up to?” he asks, gulping down some water.

I’ve been on a bit of a journey myself, I tell him. Almost 50 light years away.