MY husband and I are on the train, heading (strikes and engineering works permitting) back home. We’ve had a good lunch with our son, who over the last decade has morphed from a grumpy teenager to a fully paid up member of the adult community, complete with lovely and sensible girlfriend and the beginnings of a collection of cast-iron cookware.

Our son and his girlfriend have grand plans for the future, just as you should at their age, which involve interesting jobs and a lot of overseas travel and mini-breaks in plush hotels bought on lastminute.com. It reminds me of us, at their age, in many ways, except for the lastminute bit, obviously.

At some point during lunch the conversation turned to the fact that today is our wedding anniversary, and after my husband and I disagreed about how many years it’s been – I said 37, but he said 38, and since he was proved right it just shows how much I must be enjoying myself, for time to pass that fast – and our son offered his congratulations. He couldn’t imagine, he said, quite ever being that old.

On the train, I bring the subject up again.

Do you remember being that age, I say to my husband. With this vast landscape of life in front of you, and blithely unaware of anything that could get in the way of what you wanted?

My husband looks askance. Perhaps he doesn’t remember, but it’s more likely that it was me who was just blithely unaware of everything – including the fact that he fully already anticipated how you might well have your plans, but the universe might have some very different intentions all together.

Still, we have generally had a good time over the years, I say. We have travelled a bit – remember that weekend in Porlock – and had some interesting jobs. Top of the list were the summer I spent temping as a dental assistant in a foreign language – how the dentist and I laughed as he ordered an amalgam filling and I prepared to remove part of the patient’s gum – and my husband’s stint peeling potatoes in a chippy on Barry Island. If I close my eyes I can still conjure up the smell of fried fish batter.

Is there anything you’d change, I ask my husband.

I’m pleased to note that after 38 years he approached a question like that with the caution, nay fear, that it merits.

Not really, he says, and looks at my face for a hint of how that reply has gone down. He sharpens up his act immediately.

No, not at all, he corrects himself. What about you?

I lean back in the seat and don’t answer immediately. That’s not because I can’t think of anything, but because we’ve only got ten minutes till our station, so I’m going to have to be selective and prioritise.

The way you pack the dishwasher, so everything ends up needing washing twice. The way you pull the handbrake up so hard that I can’t undo it. The fact that you don’t sort dirty linen by colour, but by item type, which is why all our whites aren’t. White that is.

The way you never open letters addressed to you. The way you play Neil Young very loud while you’re preparing a meal. The way you think that Neil Young can even sing.

He nods sagely. There are no surprises there, then.

So, are you sure there’s nothing that you would change, I say.

He screws up his face.

Not really, he says. Well, just one thing.

I raise an encouraging eyebrow.

I wish one year you could remember how long we’ve been married, he says.