Route 46: down Memory Lane

Once upon a time in the 1970s, the woodpecker family took frequent car journeys around rural Ireland and Scotland, at first in a Cortina, and later in a dreadful smelly khaki Fiat.
Mrs Woodpecker was the sole driver, while her five or six children sat behind, pecking the eyes out of each other and singing old, old songs, or demanding ghost stories. TMl was good at recounting those, for there was no car radio or reception in those dark times.
This woodpecker suffered from acute, and then manageable, car sickness. By the time she grew out of it, her baby brother had inherited the mantle. To save thinking about sickness, she'd concentrate on asking when the next boiled sweet might be coming along. It was usually about seventy miles hence. "When we reach Corran Ferry" or "Once we're past Tomintoul" would be the sort of response she'd receive.

By the time they'd reached Corran Ferry/Tomintoul/InverCockieLeekie, it would be raining so hard, and the mist had swirled over the signpost, that the sweeties would have to begged for all over again. It was an exhausting task, but that, and the singing, would keep her mind off the nausea. Once, as they passed a forest, baby brother (who was now an infant) cried out that he had seen a monkey among the trees. His older siblings ridiculed him, and said there were no monkeys in Aberdeenshire, but he remained adamant. In years to come, he grew up, married and had children, and went to live in Botswana, where his kitchen was raided regularly by monkeys.



It was misty today on the bus to Cheltenham. Yesterday's sun had vanished forever. Somehow I missed blipping the "Struck by lighning tree" and ended up with random road shots. This one is way out of my comfort zone, not nearly picturesque enough, but has sparked a torrent of memories. I can only wish in retrospect, that the roads of my childhood had been half as good as this. To remember those twisting, misty, lochside roads is to see in my mind's eye the small packet of pink travel sickness pills and recall the humiliation that I endured.

PS The misery is totally behind me, except on small or flat bottomed boats! I have not thought about it for years, apart from the vexing question of how to get the Isles of Scilly.

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