I met my husband on midsummer night 1991. It seems astonishing that this was 32 years ago, though I don’t know why it should; the fact that years merge into moments as we get older and the past stays as fresh in our memories as if it had been preserved in layers of archivists’ acid-free tissue is hardly a niche observation, but there we are. And there we were, twenty-one, and on the cusp of leaving university (literally the next morning) and going out into the real world. If our paths hadn’t crossed that night, it’s safe to assume they never would have. We joke that the spirits of our three daughters were hovering in the midsummer dusk, rolling their eyes at each other in the ether and beginning to despair of getting their chance at life. (There might be something in that theory. After all, I had never before bought a random stranger a drink as an excuse to introduce myself, and I certainly haven’t since.)

Because we got married in December, two days before the winter solstice, when we are inevitably snowed under (seasonal metaphor!) with lists of last minute things to buy, wrap, make, organise and prepare, the anniversary of our summer solstice meeting is the one we’ve always made sure to celebrate, even if it’s only with dinner in the garden and fizz on a schoolnight. Until the last couple of years, that is, when he has spent the week around midsummer day at Glastonbury, volunteering with one of the big charities, and I have stayed at home and celebrated the season and the solstice and the time gone by on my own, or with an assortment of available daughters.

The year before we met, he and I, we were both at Glastonbury, in our separate groups of friends, and I have a sensory memory of the damp warmth of that weekend, the smell of the tent and the throb of the festival going on around me as I drifted in and out of sleep on Sunday morning. He always wanted to go back, but it was never going to happen during the Small Children years (camping holidays with 3 tiny girls meant I was on a constant back-and-forth traipse to the ladies’ loos, like a despondent seaside donkey) and when we emerged on the other side I discovered that the idea of 4 days in a coffin-sized tent with only 2 gossamer-thin sheets of nylon between my head and the procession of drunk people tripping over the guy ropes (while paying the price of a weekend in Paris for the privilege) no longer appealed.  In the immortal words of Meatloaf, I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.

And of course, he doesn’t have to worry about leg-shaving and the comfort-zone stretching prospect of being make-up free at fifty-three, or Mother Nature’s unkind sense of humour when it comes peri-menopausal menstruation. So he went off alone last Tuesday with a rucksack containing a toothbrush, a few t-shirts, some paracetamol and – at my insistence – a mini bottle of suncream. And I felt a pang for twenty year old me who would probably throw her hands up and say – don’t worry about greasy roots or wrinkles and unplucked eyebrows, just GO! Go with him and dance in a sweaty tent and drink warm cider and practice that hard-won skill of peeing in a portaloo.

But it was a very short-lived pang. Because after I dropped him and his ginormous rucksack at the station I drove home thinking of almost a week’s-worth of solitary nights starfished out across the whole bed. Of reading, and writing, when I felt like – as late as I wanted, or when I woke up in the small hours, when I could go and make tea to bring back upstairs if I wanted to, and open the curtains to watch the day start. The ritual of clean sheets and early nights (I usually have to scold myself to bed at midnight.) Strawberries and nectarines for breakfast and roses in a jug on the table, and all the day’s meals after that eaten at odd hours, standing up straight out of the fridge or from a bowl on the sofa watching a film he would hate. Or watching Glastonbury itself, and flicking between channels to see different bands on different stages without having to trudge across fields and through crowds, and queue for a drink that cost more than the bottle of cold rosé in the fridge. (If I’d been there I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have made Rick Astley a viewing priority. Which, as it turned out, would have been a great shame.)

As I write this on Monday afternoon, he’s sitting on a coach (my husband, not Rick Astley) which is supposed to be headed to Bristol station, but after 3 hours still hasn’t left the lanes around Worthy Farm. And although I have loved my spell of solitude I’m so looking forward to welcoming him back and hearing all about it (after he’s showered and put the first load in the washing machine.) And annoyingly telling him all about the bits he missed because he was working or not in the right place at the right time (or was foolish enough not to take a chance on Rick.)

I’m not sure I’ll be able to convince him of the superiority of the sofa festival experience. But I’m not sure I want to, either.