I breathed deeply and told myself I would be fine,you are a confident, experienced driver. You have a satellite navigation system installed in your car. Nothing can go wrong! And nothing really did, it has to be said. Maybe just a few comedic moments. Bearing in mind it was my first journey as the driver to the west country, It was pee break time on the m5. As I turned off at some services, prompted by the car in front. I followed it as it went through the turn off and sailed past the car park, back out onto the motorway it went with the sheep (me) following and squealing ‘no no! I need a wee!’ After driving for another hour I decided to try again and this time with my lovely teen son reminding me to actually ‘park the car this time!’ we got to stop and pee! My next driving dilemma came when we got to our destination, the idyllic little village of Calstock. My sat-nav couldn’t deal with the Hicksville little lanes and started to freak out. Turn left, turn right, route recalculation!! Grrrr!!! I sobbed like a girl down the phone to my saviour brother and demanded my sister, whom I was there to visit, come and get me. ‘ I know I’m just around the corner from where ever your lane ( nobody lives on streets in calstock, just lanes!) is but I can’t bloody find it, so please come and get me!? I’m at Bella and Gaby’s school.’ My boys had got out of the car and left me, proclaiming they knew exactly where auntie George’s house is. I had completely forgotten that Bella and Gaby no longer attended Calstock village school, but now went to the secondary school in the neighbouring village of Callington. So as you may have guessed, it was off to Callington for George! When in about two minutes flat the boys arrived on George’s doorstep, Tim (bro-in-law) called me and explained George was on her way to Callington and wouldn’t be too long. ‘Why is she going to Callington?’ Suffice to say we…or I got there in the end!
The views from either foot or car are breathtakingly amazing. With each new day, came a brand new adventure and as I drove around the one track lanes and across open country it was very hard to find good enough reasons not to relocate, as my sister and teen son are desperate for me to do!
It was good to laugh hard again, something I really only do in the company of my siblings. I guess the reason for that is our sense of humours must be all tangled together and when someone has known you your whole life, with acceptance and love…well then, there are no barriers. So there we were bent over double(which is hard when you’re the driver) howling with laughter as we drove to looe listening to some poor hapless radio one DJ and tearing him apart. And again in the garden of a pub at the top of a hill. All sat around a table, with me regaling Tim and George with stories of my days in the health food shop. They were laughing, but not nearly as much as they did when a huge pig waddled up behind me snorting, which caused me to jump two feet into the air swearing loudly! It took my sister about ten minutes to stop laughing…you had to be there I guess, to really appreciate the hilarity of the scene!
Our journey home was interesting in a really annoying way! four motorways and five hours later we arrived in sunny old Milton Keynes! My eldest son was extremely disappointed to be coming home and after one day back, jumped on a train back to Calstock. Luckily for me and him, I have a pretty cool and supportive sister. So he is now back ensconced in the spare room, happy as a sandboy! I made sure to give my dad a salute as we drove through Dartmoor on our return journey. Being in the West Country, my sister can’t very well visit the crematorium where my dad now resides. She has instead selected a tree, which she amazingly always finds, to visit him and touch base. I drove back on his birthday, 5th April, so it was fitting. So there we have the first week of the Easter hols sorted, now just the second to get through!
A walk in the park 