On the road again

I think I have been unfair to my children, or at least to their reputations. I suggested  that part of the reduction in the ‘fun’ element of travelling by overnight (‘sleeper’ it wasn’t) train to Oban was the need to keep the children happy. In actuality, they were beautifully behaved, a fact that has made me rethink my parenting strategy (a little late in the day as Teenage Ted is now 15). E and I have generally tried to give children choices, though whether that has been a conscious decision or something we have just stumbled upon in our bumbling, fire-fighting style of parenting, I am not sure. This time, however, we gave them no choice. “We are travelling overnight, there will be other people trying to sleep - including your parents - and you must be quiet!” It worked a treat. They whispered, they closed their eyes, they slept a little. Ted even put on his pyjamas, an eccentric act given the situation, but harmless. No choices = well-behaved children. Hmmm….

And so, after a night of sound sleep in an Oban hotel that had seen better days, we caught the ferry to Craignure in Mull. Craignure is a two-horse town with a car hire company nearby, which was helpful as we needed a car. I believe there is more than one hire company in Mull which will be useful in the future as we will not return to the one we used this time.

Fortunately the friends we were holidaying with had hired a car in Edinburgh and so could fill any extra space with food from a supermarket. I say fortunately because, unsurprisingly,  food is more expensive on Mull and the island shops offer less choice than  those on the mainland.

The island of Mull is beautiful but it would be hard to see much of it without a car - please all inveterate hikers, feel free to tell me you disagree. We had arranged to hire a car from a local family firm and I launched forth with my normal assumption that the person I was dealing with was a friendly individual who would deal fairly with us. In fact, we were soon chatting away like a couple of old pals and I was (again as usual) being extra enthusiastically grateful for the tips he was giving us about where to go and what to do and not to do. When will I learn?

The holiday was a delight, in the adults’ opinions. The children bemoaned the lack of shopping places, the lack of cinemas, the fact that we did not find a single shop selling DVDs (tape head cleaners, yes, DVDs no). But they had digital TV with more channels than anyone could watch - and a remote control that operated two TVs in two rooms at the same time, with consequences that were amusing when I was doing this, but less so when the children were doing the same to me. They also had a games room, a loch opposite the house, amazing wildlife, trips out and each other, for between the two families there are five children. They probably had too many options and were therefore dissatisfied…

One day we went on a wildlife hunt, using our own cars rather than joining a boat or organised road trip on the grounds that all of these were too expensive and no more likely to yield any more than we were under our own steam. We spent several hours driving along the roads of Mull stopping regularly to discuss whether that thing there was a stick in the water or an otter, oh, look, it is swimming; or was that big bird there an eagle? No it was a sea gull, and so on.

There is one bird of prey that  can be seen in abundance - the buzzard. From a distance, and to the untrained eye, they resemble eagles and are therefore rather exciting. They are pretty good in their own right actually. Unfortunately, E and the children tended to shout ‘oh look’ whenever they saw something that could have been an eagle but was probably a buzzard. Unfortunately, I was driving but wanted to look. Unfortunately the roads are narrow and often have deep ditches running alongside them. Unfortunately, I took my eyes off the road to see whatever exciting wildlife was nearby and  swerved the car to the side, straight into the ditch. Not to worry, we weren’t fully in; I could drive out. Or I would have been able to had the car not been stuck in wet mud, the result of many a long day of rain.

Out kids; push! PUSH! Ah, we were stuck. The practically minded among us started talking about levers, and then someone suggested reversing. With a whirl of muddy wheels and a comedy spraying of E with mud, we were out. The car was undamaged; we were undamaged, and our friends in the car in front hadn’t even noticed we were lagging behind. Of course, they were too busy watching eagles, er buzzards.

We DID see some eagles which was an amazing and unexpectedly moving sight. They were far away but even at a distance were regal and dramatic. It was worth it. In any case, the scenery was magnificent and it rained only a bit.

Without the hire car we would have been hard-pressed to do much on Mull. But there is always a catch, and, as ever with cars, it was financial. We had agreed to fill the car with petrol before returning it, and had been advised by the hire company manager to drive to a town 10 miles away for petrol on the grounds that the filling station at Craignure was expensive in the way that filling stations near car ferry terminals tend to be. But that would have involved using some of the petrol we were meant to leave in the tank at the end. So we filled up in Craignure, telling the pump attendant (a gloriously old-fashioned  perk of the place) not to stop until it was full. She did so, until the pump clicked in the way that indicates that the tank was almost full. We drove 200 yards to the car park where we were to meet the car owner. He did not turn up. The ferry would be there soon. We were booked on a train in Oban. Stress. I phoned him. Answerphone. Stress. I tried again. Oh he was on his way.

The car hire company owner, my dear old pal from a week ago, wandered by 20 minutes late, said he would take the car for a run, and, as we were about to embark on the ferry, rushed up to us and accused us of not filling the tank properly as the gauge was showing only part full. He told us we did not have time to drive to the garage to check it but that he would do so later and send us a bill. He drove to the town 10 miles away and put in more petrol and then charged us £35 for the privilege.

Had we failed to fill up? I do not rightly know. We did not look at the fuel gauge in the few moments we drove the car from the pump. Did we send a cheque? Yes. The company had a large deposit cheque from us in its files, waiting to be destroyed and I could imagine it being cashed. Mind you, it would have bounced. Will I hire a car again on Mull? Of course, but probably when the children have left home and E and I can return with our friends for peaceful week without DVDs and with a car from a different company. Who knows, we might even have our own car by then.

Welcome to the train of fun

Five months ago, when I started both the experiment of not having a car and this blog about the experiment, I warned: “Never trust a mother who tells you that something inconvenient can be fun”. You would think that the children, and indeed E, would have learned the truth of that by now. But no; they all readily agreed to travel to the Isle of Mull by train.

The Isle of Mull was the destination of this year’s summer holiday, though the weather there made me suspect that it was no longer summer in the Scottish Islands. The idea was that it would be somewhere different, remote, beautiful. It was all these and more, including a very long way away. Hiring a car and driving there was an option but would have involved  an overnight stop, a lot of fuel and very tired drivers. And hey, we have a family railcard, we could take the sleep train from London to Glasgow, it would be FUN!

The phrase ‘sleeper’ when applied to trains, conjures up images of glamour, romance, Agatha Christie, though hopefully without a murder. I once travelled to Italy in a sleeper, stretched out in a berth on clean and, it turned out, disposable sheets. Somewhere near the Italian border, a member of train staff swept in before I was fully ready, and tore the sheets off the berths and threw them into rubbish bags before I could say: “Mi scusi, bra è da qualche parte sul letto”, a rough translation of which is, I hope, "Excuse me, my bra is somewhere on that bed”. I don’t suppose it was an expensive bra, but it had been useful.

I somehow thought we would travel to Scotland is similar fashion (though with complete sets of underwear). But no, there are five in our family, which meant booking two-and-a-half sleeping berths and there were not quite enough when we wanted to travel. We could book reclining seats. “It will be like being on an airplane,“ said E. The seats would be fine. It would be fun.

Fun it wasn’t, as the discomfort of trying to sleep in a dim light with one’s head at a strange angle to one‘s body, while people wander up and down the carriages, somehow reduces any fun element. So does having to keep three children happy. There was, however, a sense of satisfaction in racing through miles of country in the darkness. Memories of Auden’s Night Mail (“This is the Night Mail crossing the border, Bringing the cheque and the postal order“) came to mind, and though the present day train does not chug as pleasingly along as did the old steam train that Auden recalled (and Eliot in Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat), it still ate up the miles like a giant, dependable and friendly monster.

Glasgow in the early morning was bright and welcoming. Too often Glasgow receives a poor press in the media but even at 7.30am its wide streets were buzzing and there was a happy expectancy in the air. I’ve a feeling I would enjoy staying there.

After a few wrong turns and  minutes spent looking at maps on street corners we made our way from Glasgow Central Station to Glasgow Queen Street Station for the next stage of the journey to Oban. The train from there wound its way through stunning countryside, past lochs, along the side of glacial valleys, through forests. E took the opportunity to explain about pine plantations, a particular bug bear of his, for little grows in them apart from, you guessed it, pine. I took the opportunity to gaze at the scenery as I normally drive and so have to keep my eyes on the road, rather than the any lochs or plantations along the way. Later in the holiday I was driving (a hire car) and took my eyes off the road to look for whatever wildlife someone had exclaimed about. Fortunately the children are now strong enough to help push cars out of ditches. But that is another story.

And so to Oban, ready for a ferry to Mull. So far, so good. The journey was tiring but straightforward. And come on kids, it was sort of fun…

When the wheels come down

I have new wheels. They belong to a sleek green and silver vehicle, the sort of vehicle that cannot be filled with the clutter and debris of family life, the sort of vehicle that those considerably younger than my middle-aged years covet and, indeed, may own. But these wheels, all two of them, somehow fail to impress those of younger years; in fact they seem to laugh a little at them or at least the combination of me and said wheels. For the wheels belong to Coco and are attached to his scooter.

Towards the end of term, Coco started scooting to school with me scuttling alongside beside him. He then expected me to walk home afterwards with the scooter in my hands. The arrangement suited me quite well on the days that I was not then hurrying into work, for it put pay to any dawdling and so helped us in our bid to reach school before register. But, as many other parents who have been left holding the scooter at the school gate will tell you, carrying a scooter is awkward and tends to bash against the legs and bruise them. The solution, or at least the temptation, is obvious. Leap aboard and scoot.

I tell you, it is fun. Smooth stretches of road glide beneath the wheels; trees, bushes, parked cars, street lamps, pedestrians seem to whizz by; the wind blows in my face. I am flying.

Yes, flying through the air to land in an undignified and painful sprawl on the pavement. One morning, growing in confidence (and convinced there was no-one around to watch), I tried a trick. I had seen local secondary school children speed downhill and leap with ease and grace onto pavements. It looked easy. The recent banning of these scooters at the secondary school was clearly the application of over-zealous health and safety rules. Typical nanny state stuff. I leapt and, with ease and grace, the scooter flew from beneath me.

I wonder if adults hurt more when they fall. I can remember skinning my knees on concrete, falling out of trees, going over the handlebars of my bike and generally doing what most children do. I don’t remember it hurting a great deal. This removal of the skin from my elbow by the pavement was excruciating. I felt sick. I made a fuss. Ted the teenager was still at home (looking for his tie and failing to find it inside his computer). I was grateful and dispatched him to find cream and bandages and to make sweet tea to counter the shock. He got off a lateness detention thanks to my shaky call to his school. It was all a bit dramatic, but the wound really was quite large and the skin had gone from the tips of my fingers too. Incidentally, don’t believe the ‘no sting’ promise on the cans of ‘spray on plaster’. In theory, you can spray a wound with a liquid that will keep it covered and clean and it will not hurt. The covering bit was true, the application was painful.

A few days later I was walking to school in the afternoon taking Coco’s scooter so that he could ride it home (carefully, safely, no sudden leaps). The road ahead looked smooth. Surely a little ride would not hurt...

Oh yes, I'm the great campaigner

I noted with interest last week that Big Brother is alive and watchful in Newcastle. University students are having their bins monitored to see what recyclable/compostable items they have thrown away. “It’s a bit like having your conscience sat on your shoulder niggling away at you.  And on top of that you know that other people are also judging you,” was the apparently contented opinion of Anja Thieme, one of the research students leading the project, nicknamed BinCamC.  Perhaps the students have never read Orwell's  Nineteen Eighty-Four; perhaps, having grown up in an era of reality TV, they don’t see that the camera may be intrusive and potentially dangerous; perhaps they have decent local recycling facilities; perhaps things have changed since I was a student and they all have cars.

The Big Brother aspect should be generating debate, but for now my subject is cars, or, as usual, the lack of them. For, at least where I live, it is well-nigh impossible to recycle much without a car. We have limited kerbside recycling, we can pay extra for garden recycling and to have bulky items picked up, and the rest - Tetrapaks, cardboard, many plastics, foil, batteries, books, clothes, shoes - must be taken to recycling points. Food waste cannot be recycled, at least not in my road, though small bins of old food are collected in an adjoining road.

 

I can do some of this. Foil is not too bulky, batteries go to a  local shop, I can take clothes, books and shoes to a charity shop from time to time, as long as I don’t want to take too many. But it is hard to carry large loads of cardboard or Tetrapaks on the bus along with anything else I might need to take into town, and the only place I know that recycles plastic fruit containers etc would involve taking two buses, which is quite an effort just to be green about a few pots.

As I am not the only person in the area who does not drive a car, I cannot be the only person with this problem. In fact, about 26% of the population does not drive cars, so I suspect that these people have similar problems, unless of course, their local council has been kind enough to provide decent recycling facilities where they live. They do it in a neighbouring borough, so  WHY NOT WHERE I LIVE?

Rather than moan, I have taken to writing letters to councillors to ask them to remedy the situation. I have also become the great campaigner for a train and bus system that tie up rather than the current system, whereby the bus from the stop by the local train station leave sas the train pulls in. OK, all I have done so far is written a letter, but it is a start. Similarly I have written to complain about the failure of one of Britain’s many rail companies (too many to remember which now, bloomin’ privatisation) to tell us about engineering work when they sent us our travel itinerary for a trip to Birmingham and back a week ago. We wouldn’t have minded so much if the ‘replacement bus service’ had tied up with the connecting train. Instead, we dawdled into Wokingham ten minutes after our train had left, and guess what, the trains run once an hour on a Saturday evening as those who can’t afford/choose not/have other good reasons not to run a car are not expected to venture far on a Saturday evening. Why should they? They fall outside the norm and therefore must be punished.

There seemed little to do on a Saturday evening in Wokingham for a family with three children. In fact we ended up in the Budrum Kebab House by the station, where the food was not great but the friendly service made up for it. And at least we had food, which is more than the commuters had last Thursday when they were stuck for around four hours on trains between Waterloo and Woking. When E, who was on one of the trains (the one with a diabetic passenger in need of insulin, and a woman who was eight months pregnant) finally arrived at our home station there were no buses and too few taxis for the crowds of commuters. He ended up walking the half hour home.

The message - life is not designed for those without cars. I shall have to complain to Big Brother about it.

Up on a hill, as the day dissolves

A short update as I want to recapture something of this evening before I forget it. The memory has already been somewhat distorted by the stresses of family life (including argument with Ted over missing Sellotape).

I went to work today, something I rarely do on a Friday, particularly at half-term, but if we are ever to become car addicts again, or even afford train tickets or new shoes for all the walking, I need to accept jobs whenever and wherever possible. Plus, E was back from a work trip to the Peruvian rainforest (I kid you not) and at home resting and/or looking after the children, the two being mutually exclusive.

I worked much later than usual, in part, I realised later, because I needed to regain a sense of a self other than the mother who has been looking after the children on her own this half-term. I have no idea how single parents do this long-term, particularly if they work. And, having yet to perfect my grasp of timetables, I missed the once-an-hour bus home (why would anyone need a bus in the evening more than once an hour? After all, the impoverished failures who use the buses shouldn't want to go out or go home after 6pm). So I decided to walk through the park.

Our town is lucky in having a huge park attached to it. It's apparently a medieval deer park that climbs the hill going north from the town, and there are 320 acres of it. Crossing it diagonally from the town centre takes you up to our bit of town. We may live on the wrong side of the tracks but those who live in the south of the town don't get to walk home through an area of such beauty.


In the past I had reserved walks in the park for family outings, sledging in the winter, blackberrying, watching the nearby air show without having to pay, and trudging through the snow to work when the weather has made the roads impassable to cars. This was the first time I had walked through it alone on a summer evening. The air was warm, there was a lively breeze, the light was subtle (particularly through my sunglasses; I tried my ordinary ones too, but sometimes a filter is better and, after all, mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun), and all around me were trees, grasses, birds, insects and no doubt hordes of small mammals and shy deer. There was the sound of cars in the background, and I had a close shave with two cyclists as I entered the park, but these did nothing to detract from the experience.

I distantly remember another occasion when I was about 13 and had been suddenly aware of the beauty of a what had until then been an unlovely sight to me - a school playing field. I know my response then was one of unself-conscious awe (we were much less grown-up as teenagers in those days) and prayer. This evening I began to feel the spiritual awe but then the self-consciousness of being an uptight adult kicked in. It seems almost impossible simply to let go and relax into the here and now, to accept beauty as something transcendental, to turn towards God. I could do so for just a moment before everything else crowded back in, but I wonder, if we can manage it for even a few seconds, perhaps we inch a tiny bit closer to peace on earth.

Mind you, all that grass did make me sneeze.

The drugs don't work, they only make it worse

My name is Prom Queen and it is exactly 12 weeks and two days since I last owned a working car. I am not a Thatcherite failure but a woman tackling an addiction.

I am serious. This is not a joke or a cheap shot at addicts. Like the majority of adults I had become addicted to the car. I thought I could not manage without it. It cost me a lot of money and it was doing me no good. True, it was helpful to get me to work and back, the kids to clubs and back, and the whole family away (and back) for weekends and holidays, but there were definite health drawbacks.

OK, my and the majority of other adults’ addiction to driving is not as destructive to us and our families and friends as heroin, crack or alcohol, say, even though vehicles may be as life-threatening as drugs if the following statistics are to be believed:

There are about 9,000 deaths from alcohol a year in the UK (other estimates put it at 40,000 though it depends what you count as alcohol-related), 114,000 people die from tobacco-related disease, and drugs kill something in the region of 3,000 people which is roughly the same number as are killed in traffic accidents. So smoking is a lot more dangerous than drinking, drug-taking or getting into a car. Of course this begs the question of why tobacco is legal, even why alcohol is legal and other drugs are not, but that’s for another time. As it is, it would seem that cars are not beneficial to health and safety. Amazing Britain allows them really.

But this isn’t the main thing I am thinking about. Yes, when I get in a car I am at risk, and if I walk rather than drive I am healthier (as long as I’m not knocked down by car, that is). But give your average adult a car and they will use it excessively, embracing new hobbies and ‘just popping to the shops’, because they can. I've read that the average person in the UK spends 90 minutes a day travelling, most of it by car, while those without cars spend less time (87 minutes) even though they can't whizz places at great speed.

Take my good friend A ( who picks me and my children up when we get stuck so I am hugely grateful and hope she doesn’t kick the car habit). She emailed me to say: “So far this morning I have taken R (elder son) to cricket then R (younger son) to football, dashed to Sainsbury's then home to unpack to football to cricket then into town! If I had no car I would had done internet shopping and read a book.”

Exactly. Since I have had no car I have rushed around less. Is that a good thing? It means that our wings have been a little clipped. Timetables must be studied, journeys have to be planned, and sometimes abandoned. Last Tuesday, for example, I should have been going to the theatre to review a play as part of my job, but, because my lift fell through, I stayed at home and someone else saw what was apparently an entertaining whodunit. It was a shame but I watched TV with the children instead which was good for our relationship, and I didn’t have to write the review.  I have not been able to drive other people around and this, selfishly, continues to be a huge relief (and has meant that those regular passengers have had to become more self-reliant so that is probably good. Yes Ted, you are 14 and have legs, school is a mile away - walk!). And we all hark on about the ‘good old days’ when life was simpler. Give up the car and life can be simpler if you choose that it should be, as long as you can get to the places you really need to reach.

There remain some problems - mainly Monday and Tuesday nights when Ted and Lexy have drama classes, and those days when I must take some of our eccentrically large number of cats to the vet. If we ever need an emergency trip to a doctor with one of the children, we will take a taxi but I can’t bring myself to do this simply to escort three solid toms (aka ‘The Brothers’) to the vet for routine immunisations. Instead, Boris’s Dad helped with the vet run today and has promised to come back next week if I can capture the one tom who savaged me with his claws before leaping on top of a neighbour’s garage from where he watched me with a mix of caution and disdain. Drama remains a challenge and I am hugely grateful to A for doing more dashing around and rescuing Lexy last week.

So should I clip the children’s wings further and tell them they have to stop drama? That would seem wrong. The classes are fun. Lexy and Ted are enthusiastic about them and seem to benefit from them. Why should they be penalised for our decision not to have a car? And let's face it, the Younger and Elder Rs would not be able to do their cricket, football and other sports (see below) without the use of a car and would probably interrupt their mother's reading!

We don’t yet have the money for a new car, but we probably have the credit so we could buy one. People with neither money nor credit must make do with feet, bikes and public transport. They probably don’t start attending drama classes in the first place unless there is somewhere within easy reach. I watched a TV programme in which the head of an inner-city primary school and the head of one of the top state junior schools in the country swapped places. One day, the inner-city head was talking to a charming little boy from the high-performing junior school. He told her that he went to drama classes outside school. The head was taken aback. That wasn’t an opportunity her regular children had. Her own school was nowhere near as successful as the one she was visiting.

High-achievement at school is closely linked to opportunity and parental support. The former, and to an extent the latter, is closely linked to economics. That should not be the case. But while society is addicted to cars and while there is no meaningful investment in public transport, nor in providing decent local classes and facilities, it is hard to see how that will change.

PS A’s dashing around is paying off. Congratulations to the elder R for winning the Waterlooville Junior Open. You worked hard and are clearly talented. But without your mum or dad’s car you would not have got so good at golf.

Here comes success, here comes my car

A few nights ago I dreamed I had a car again. Interestingly (to me at least) in the dream I felt guilty about having the car as I was turning my back on green(er) living. I think I even resolved to drive the car as little as possible and continue to walk and catch buses and trains.

This may be a sneak preview of the future because I doubt we will continue this carlessness for ever. It has been something like 10 weeks since our car packed up and people are beginning to ask questions. Foremost among these questions is ‘when are you (or 'we' in the case of the children) going to get a new car?’ The children are particularly interested in the answer as they are tiring of the inconvenience of walking and bus-catching. But others, who have less of a personal interest in our means of transport, are also keen to have an answer.

I think this has a lot to do with our perceived status in society. We are middle class, middle income and middle aged. We are professionals. We should not be on the bus.

Margaret Thatcher is  said to have said that ‘Anybody seen in a bus over the age of 30 has been a failure in life’, though apparently it was Loelia Ponsonby, one of the wives of the second Duke of Westminster, and /or the poet Brian Howard rather earlier on. Whoever, the desire, or even the right, to acquire was given the official stamp of approval in the 1980s and bus-catching failure sentiment has crept into common shallow perception.  It was perhaps that sentiment that inspired the young men in the fast car to shout out to me and Coco as we stood at the bus stop the other day. Their comments weren’t particularly witty or publishable, but were along the lines of us committing the sin of Onan with/at/on behalf of (it wasn’t made clear) the bus stop.  

So am I, in middle age and standing at a bus stop, a failure? I certainly haven’t made vast amounts of money - in fact, if I had had a student loan it would have been written off by now because my income has never reached the level at which graduates have to start paying them off. And are the friends I have who do not drive and are on low incomes - some of them, shock horror, on benefits - likewise failures? And the people who choose to take the bus because they believe that car driving is bad for their health/the environment? And the people who enjoy the company that public transport can give them? And the people who just don’t really give a damn about what others think?

It all depends on how you define success and failure. The car industry obviously has a vested interest in a definition that equates success with a smart, big car. The advertising industry that spends hours and hours and more money than most of us would dream of on promoting these cars, likewise has a vested interest. The oil industry, the government, engineers, road construction companies, rubber companies…all gain vastly from our car addiction.

On the other hand, the environmental and health implications of the world’s obsession with cars are well documented. And if we trash the planet that we depend on, and while we are at it trash ourselves, just how successful are we?

But it takes a lot to stand up against prevailing opinion, and the opinion of children who really, really don’t want to walk another step.