Longevity Explained

The husband and I celebrate twelve years together today. Well, to say "celebrate" is probably an overly enthusiastic use of words. Over dinner and Ice Road Truckers on Channel 5 we may somehow acknowledge with faint disbelief the length of our union, before commenting on the quality of the tomatoes or the trashiness of the television show. Still, twelve years as a couple and around six months of those as young marrieds merits some kind of tribute. I offer, then, a small sketch of a Sunday afternoon.

After a weekend buried deep in the Six Nations Rugby, complete with takeaway pizza and a distinct lack of activity beyond the sofa, I felt we were settling into a pleasingly relaxed groove. The Sunday Times flopped down on the coffee table with a satisfying thud and as I started to brew the tea I looked forward to us slowly dissecting the paper in the cosy warmth of our flat. Rain and wind lashed the windows, but the rattle of the sashes didn't detract from the snugness of the indoors. A proper Sunday clearly stretched out before us, unstructured and yet absorbing. Then, just as the comforting smell of toasting muffins began to waft from under the grill, the husband peered at me from behind the Culture supplement and said: "I don't feel like just hanging around the flat today."

I did not share his enthusiasm for venturing out into the tempest, but when he has his heart set on something it is very difficult to argue with him. After twelve years together he also knows exactly how to persuade me to do stuff. He promised a flask of tea in the car and the opportunity for me to wear my snow trousers. Fleecey lined, teflon coated leg huggers, baggy of crotch but obscenely comfortable and warm, with a zip-up pocket for my BlackBerry, I do not have enough occasions in life to wear these trousers. They are not what you would call socially acceptable everyday wear. They require a certain extremeness of conditions and terrain where hiking boots are necessary. So yes, I thought, let's throw those boots in the car and go. Let's throw caution to the sat nav and go on an adventure. Let's twist and turn through the Sussex country lanes and ponder just how the water on the flooded roads seems to be flowing uphill.

As we drove the husband bemoaned the fact that it had stopped raining and the gale seemed to be abating. Clearly the backdrop to his Sunday outdoors wasn't meant to be cheerfully sunny or calm. Of sun, though, there was no sign and under leaden skies we began to skirt the faintly sad suburban borders of Eastbourne, where grey concrete tower blocks blended into monochrome cloud. The sat nav woman commanded that we take a right turn, away into the town's green margins, and before we knew it we found ourselves on the quiet coast road out to Beachy Head.

On the exposed clifftop we were flayed by the strong winds, our layers of fleece fluttering ineffectually about us. It was bitterly cold, but thankfully the rain held off and the husband was able to enter into a manly struggle with his camera equipment against the elements. He photographed lighthouse and cliffs, his freezing fingers attempting to play with exposure settings in the bleak, wintry gloom. I gazed out at the sea below, sipping from the flask and tucking the wayward curls of my unruly hair back into my woolly hat, lest I gave the impression of some tea-toting medusa madly stalking the cliffs. There was no shelter up there to speak of, just the magnificent desolation of where land meets sea and many, many monuments, echoes of civilization in a place where people are quite small and insignificant in relation to the greater elements. This headland was a notorious suicide spot, a place where guns once stood and warplanes flew overhead and a place where people go just to look out at somewhere that isn't there, pondering the locations on the compass rose and drawing lines out to destinations far across the waves.

It was too cold to walk about there for very long. Cobwebs successfully blown away, we headed back to the car, arm in arm and laughing at the sheer madness of the idea of a clifftop jaunt on a day like today. At the edge of the car park was a hardy looking ice cream van, sticking two stalwart fingers up at the weather, defiantly selling frozen snacks to frozen folks. Ruddy of face and unable to feel our extremities, neither of us could resist the desire to have an ice cream. With a chocolate flake, naturally. Ninety nines in hand, we watched the seagulls turn their mad turns, buffeted by the breeze and crying their throaty signature coastal caw. We love to do idiotic things like eating ice cream at Beachy Head in the middle of a February gale and it follows thus that we love each other. Twelve years of being together and I can't sum it up much better than that.