Then something screeches in my head or maybe I do it out loud. Isn’t this the same conversation we had last week?

My husband shoots me a worried glance when there’s no response from me. ‘That okay?’

I sit down heavily at the kitchen table. ‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s not okay.’

That takes him by surprise.

‘I need to talk to you.’

Now the grill gets an anxious glance. ‘The chops are just about ready.’

‘Turn them off,’ I say. I don’t care if they end up as charcoal discs.

He does as I say and then sits down opposite me. ‘If this is about the Norfolk thing,’ he says, ‘then I’m very sorry. I overreacted. I was thinking about it when I was fishing, and bra and pants aren’t that much different from a bikini really. It was just the way you did it.’

‘I want to go to Peru,’ I blurt out.

Greg’s jaw hits the floor.

‘My colleagues at work are organising a charity trek doing the Inca Trail. Everyone’s going.’ I’m aware that I sound like a petulant child. ‘I want to go too.’

Then Greg starts laughing and it’s not the reaction I expect. Tears roll down his cheeks with hilarity. ‘You?’ he says. ‘Doing the Inca Trail? You can’t walk for five minutes on the flat without getting out of puff.’

‘I admit,’ I retort crisply, ‘that I’ll have to do some training.’

‘You’ll hate it,’ Greg assures me when he has his laughter under control.

‘But I want to try,’ I plead. ‘If I hate it, then at least I’ll know that. I don’t want to let this opportunity go by, to do something different. I feel as if I’m stuck in a dreadful dreadful rut that I can’t climb out of.’

Now Greg stops laughing completely and the smile falls from his face. ‘I didn’t realise that life with me was so awful.’

‘It isn’t.’

My husband stands up. ‘You’ve been acting very strangely lately, Annie,’ he says. ‘I just don’t understand you.’

‘Come with me,’ I beg. ‘I’m sure you could. We should do it together. You might enjoy it. Don’t you ever want to do something crazy?’

‘I don’t need to prove that I’m happy by climbing up a mountain in a foreign country. I’m happy with a beer in front of the television.’

Or a bloody fishing rod in your hand, I think bitterly.

‘I’m frightened that we’re becoming old before our time. I want to do something to make me feel alive. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life never going out of this road, this country. I need some freedom and fun.’

Greg’s face darkens. ‘What you need is to get a grip on yourself, Annie.’

‘Thank you for your support.’