People wake from certain recurring nightmares. For some it is falling from a great height, for others it is being found naked in a crowded city centre, while others wake up screaming from a dream of being buried alive.

For me the worst recurring nightmare would be pushing a trolley along the aisles of B&Q on a Bank Holiday Saturday morning, buying bathroom tiles.

I was with my partner Kitty. We exchanged a glance, and pulled faces of abject horror. Her nightmares were similar.

"When I get home," she said, "I need to do some dancing."

"Me too," I said. More of that later.

On 'Why Sing Goodbye Songs?', the latest excellent CD of Whitley Bay singer Pete Scott, there's a track called 'Midsommer Murders' where a couple realise their lives are now defined by Sunday nights with a glass of wine, watching the undemanding middle-of-the road TV programme of the same name. (Scott expressed similar sentiments in a previous song, which included the line 'We're all Buying Wallpaper Now'.)

We writers can get paranoid about such things. Which is why deciding to shack up after 21 years together, brings not just excitement for we two, but also anxieties.

I'm reassured when Kitty staggers in with her large pot pig and other oddities which add to the house's sense of the Bohemian.

And the bathroom tiles were cracked and dropping off. So why the paranoia? Both myself and the other housemate had grown overfamilar with the place. It was turning into a tip. The house was in a rut. So here's a fresh eye, a new broom. And a giant pig.

At the same time, I recall a female poet friend, who some years ago moved in with her partner, a man with a proper job.

"So what's it like, living with him?" I asked. She furrowed her brow, thought a minute and replied, "It's OK, but it's a grown-up house."

I have a deep fear of grown-up houses. As Kitty wanders in with a large mask to hang, I realise she does too. Yet we still need to give one another a reassuring hug. Funny stuff, this living together. We're not used to it.

Which brings me to the dancing. I've started dancing round the house to music on a regular basis. Kitty does it as well. But we do it separately.

For me, it's because I have no idea how to grow old. I suspect no-one does. So I dance.

Some older men make utter prats of themselves at parties or offspring's birthday celebrations. They get up to dance, and gyrate unbecomingly. More sensible old dancers are rooted to the spot with a slight bend of the legs, arms moving like sluggish pistons, and a constipated look on the face.

I am of the utter prat school. I love exertion and when it is allied to music there's a sense of joyous release that the pain of running can never bring. I ran for more than 30 years, and only stopped recently when the new hip-on-the-block began to grumble.

The daily dancing sees me slowly working through my vinyl, tape and CD collection, one album per week. With more than 600, I will be boogying on a zimmer frame by the end.

Last week it was the Eurythmics, this week Bob Seeger. Before that, Orbital, the Red Stripes, The Hollies Greatest Hits. A 20 minute slot allows you to throw yourself around the room, pout like Mick Jagger, or duck-walk like Chuck Berrry. Vin Garbutt, as I recall used to do a backward flip, but I decline.

It is a ridiculous thing for a man of my age to do, and I love it. People stare in the window and raise eyebrows. So what?

Kitty dances too, different music, different room, different time. Why not together? Because that's how it is.

I like thinking of Kitty doing her own dancing. She feels the same. It makes anxieties dissipate, and the buying of tiles more relaxed. And we both prefer it to watching Midsommer Murders.

PETER MORTIMER