Things to do with your partner at the weekend

There is a particular kind of Saturday that goes: lie-in, phones, a vague conversation about what to do, a drive to a retail park, lunch somewhere with a laminated menu, home, telly. Nothing wrong with it, except that it is the same as last Saturday, and the one before that, and at some point one of you says "we never do anything" and the other one says "well what do you want to do" and the answer is nothing, really, just something different.

So here is a list. Most of it is cheap or free, all of it is doable from an ordinary British town, and none of it requires booking three weeks ahead.

Outside

A bus to the end of the line. Get on a route you have never taken and ride it to the terminus. Walk around. Find a cafe. Come back. You will see parts of where you live that you did not know existed, and it costs two tickets.

The towpath. Nearly every town in Britain has a canal, river or disused railway line with a flat path along it. Pick a direction, walk for an hour, turn round. A flask helps. So does not checking the time.

parkrun, together. Free, every Saturday at nine, five kilometres, and nobody minds if you walk it. Breakfast afterwards is the point. If one of you runs and the other does not, one runs and the other volunteers. It is a surprisingly companionable way to spend a morning.

The coast, out of season. A cold beach in November with chips in the car afterwards beats a hot one in August for about half the cost and none of the queues.

Non-league football. Your nearest club three or four divisions below the ones on television charges a few pounds, lets you stand where you like, and sells a pie. You will care about the result by half time.

Inside, cheaply

Tourist in your own town. Go to the museum you have walked past for years. Do the walking tour from the tourist office website. Eat where the visitors eat. Most towns are more interesting than the people who live in them think.

Cook something ambitious. Not dinner, a project. Bread that takes all day. Dumplings. A curry from scratch with the spices bought from the shop you always meant to go in. One of you reads out the recipe, the other does the work, and you swap halfway. Expect it to go slightly wrong.

The library. Many lend board games and jigsaws now, as well as books. Pick one each. Agree in advance that losing is allowed.

The five-pound charity shop challenge. Each of you has a fiver and thirty minutes to buy the other a present from the charity shops on the high street. Open them over a coffee. This produces either a very good gift or a very good story.

Fix something. The drawer that sticks, the bike with the slow puncture, the shelf that has been leaning against the wall since March. Working on a task side by side is a different kind of time together from sitting side by side.

Slightly further

A lido. Britain has dozens of outdoor pools, many of them heated and open well into autumn. An hour of swimming and a cup of tea on a cold bench afterwards is a small and reliable happiness.

The cinema in the afternoon. Matinees are cheaper, emptier, and leave the evening free. Watch something neither of you would have chosen alone.

Plan a holiday you may never take. An evening with a map, a notebook and no budget. Where would you go? The planning is most of the pleasure, and you learn things about what the other person wants that do not come up otherwise.

Volunteer for a morning. Beach cleans, park groups, a food bank shift. Doing something useful next to each other tends to make people like each other more.

A short honest aside

If you have read this far and felt a small sinking rather than any interest, pause on that. Needing time to yourself at the weekend is ordinary. Most couples need more of it than they take. But dreading the two days, or feeling the house relax when your partner goes out, or finding that every idea on this list sounds pleasant until you imagine doing it with them, is different. On its own it means nothing, but it is worth noticing, and worth being honest with yourself about what the dread is of. If you want to think about that properly, Don't all couples have problems? is free and short, and it does not tell you anything you do not want to hear.

For everyone else: the end of the bus line is waiting.