If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older -Tom Stoppard

I'm struggling to get to grips with the whole business of Christmas shopping this year. It seems that time has gone on fast forward since our holiday in Norfolk August and suddenly it's mid November. I have managed to do a little bit of Christmas Shopping because we went to see my brother in law and his family in Plymouth at the end of October and I took the opportunity to deliver the presents for my niece and nephew. I love going to see them, but we don't manage to get there as often as I would like, it's a long way to drive for a weekend and it's expensive to travel by train. We planned this trip to fit into Robbie's schedule, he is very busy with work at the moment and most weekends seem to be booked up in advance with an assortment of commitments. Robbie was very kind to me, he booked our tickets and reserved our seats making sure that we were booked to travel on a Voyager rather than an HST for both journeys. I can see the attraction of HSTs but in terms of comfort I prefer Voyagers because I'm not very tall and I find the seats more comfortable. I know the vestibules are a bit smelly but we usually get a good journey on a voyager and recent experience with Cross Country suggest that we get better service on a Voyager than on an HST. 

My favourite part of the journey is stretch Just south Exeter which follows the River Exe to Starcross and onward to Dawlish Warren and the sea. It then skirts the coast to Dawlish and on towards Teignmouth where it turns inland again and snakes along the edge of the River Teign towards Newton Abbott. It's a beautiful route and I always stop what I'm doing to look out of the window and soak up the view. In the winter it can be a bit alarming when the waves pelt the train along the sea wall at Dawlish. This area of track was badly damaged in the storms last winter, it is in use again now but there must be a question about it's long term viability.

My favourite part of the visit to Plymouth, apart from the obvious pleasure of spending time with family, was our Sunday morning walk to the Barbican. What could possibly be better than breakfast at Cap'n Jaspers on a sunny autumn morning. No trip to Plymouth is complete without a visit to Cap'n Jaspers. 

Early morning in Plymouth

My son came home from uni for a few days last week, it was nice to have him back but I didn't see much of him because he had things to do and he wanted to catch up with his friends. I took on my old familiar role of his 'taxi' driver - I had forgotten how many extra journeys one nineteen year old could create! When I picked him up from his friends house on the other side of town he was chatting to me about his friend's odd perception of age. Apparently they had been discussing a local news story and his friend described a 38 year old man as elderly. I was briefly reassured when Will told me that he'd explained to his friend that thirty eight is not elderly, but then he went on to say that it is probably more accurate to describe it as late middle age!! I wondered out loud how on earth someone so bright could have such an odd perception of reality! He looked at me with a grin on his face and informed me that as he's nearly 20 he is due for his 'quarter life crisis' so that he can get some practice in before his mid life crisis. I love his sense of humour, but he makes me feel very old.

Last Monday I drove Will back to Cheltenham. There are two possible routes but I prefer the one through the Cotswolds, it takes about the same amount of time as the other route but it is a much more interesting drive with beautiful views of the countryside. Will disapproves of my iTunes playlist, he is not a fan of Woman's Hour and I can't tolerate the overspill noise from his headphones so we had to resort to that quaint old fashioned pastime - conversation. Chatting with Will is fraught with difficulty, if I seem too interested he claims that I'm interrogating him, if I say too little I'm variously accused of disinterest or disapproval. So I take my lead from him, sometimes he is very chatty, but often when we travel together he is less talkative and we lapse into comfortable silence. It was like that on Monday, he had chatted happily about his university course for the first few minutes of our journey but by the time we reached Banbury we were both lost in our own thoughts. 

As we drove through the town I pointed out a rather ornate monument ahead of us and said "I wonder if that is Banbury Cross?". Will looked at me as if I was speaking in a foreign language and I explained that I was referring to the nursery rhyme Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross. To my surprise he told me that he had never heard the rhyme before and I couldn't convince him otherwise. It seems that I neglected  my duty as a parent to pass on the rich assortment of nursery rhymes which have been passed down the generations, so rather belatedly I recited the nursery rhyme to him. With a look of horror he begged me to stop, he knows me too well and  he was afraid that if I got started I would progress from nursery rhymes to poems and we would still be ploughing through the Pied Piper of Hamelin when we reached Cheltenham. My maternal grandmother could recite the entire poem from memory and thanks to her frequent renditions I can still manage to recite most of the poem without prompting. Will hastily changed the subject to the more pressing matter of lunch and we decided to treat ourselves to lunch at Wetherspoons when we got to Chetenham.

After lunch Will took me to see his flat, I hadn't been inside since the day he moved in. To my surprise his room and his adjoining bathroom are neat and tidy. I sat on his bed I glanced around at the unaccustomed sense of order and I noticed a row of bottles of alcohol arranged in height order along the top of his bookcase. As my eye travelled along the line of bottles I noticed with some concern that all were less than half full, then I noticed the smallest bottle at the end of the row, it was Gaviscon! I couldn't help laughing. 

Will and I walked into the centre of Cheltenham to have a look at the Shops. He showed me his favourite book shop and we had a look at a slightly quirky clothes shop. He pointed out various garments on his wish list, but having already bought him a lava lamp I didn't grant any further wishes that day. His birthday and Christmas are almost upon us so I expect some of his wishes will come true in the near future. We visited Tiger, one of my favourite shops, we don't have one locally so I enjoyed browsing and by the time I reached the tills I had a full basket and I had ticked off a few more items on my Christmas shopping list. Then it was time for me to head home, alone with my thoughts and leave Will to his new found independence.

A White Elephant

The son who must not be named had to go to the dentist, so I picked him up from school and drove him to the surgery. Our route took us past a large traffic island and the edge of Abington Park, the traffic island was planted with daffodils and so was a wide slope at the edge of the park. I pointed out that the daffodils were in full bloom and I said that when I see daffodils the words of a poem pop into my head. My son said "yes I know" and he promptly quoted the whole first verse of the Robert Herrick poem To Daffodils. "Fair daffodils, we weep to see you haste away so soon, As yet the early-rising sun has not attained his noon. ...................." He went on to say that he doesn't like daffodils because they flower so briefly and then seem to stand there looking dead for months. I know exactly what he means, daffodils always make me feel sad too and I agree with his sentiments about the display of daffodils in the park. It has a big sign saying "Field of Hope" but he says that it inspires the opposite of hope because the daffodils look dead for most of the year, with just a couple of weeks of colour in early spring. I still find it fascinating when he allows me little glimpses of his 'aspie' thought process, I may only give a passing thought to contradictions such as the field of hope, but such things really trouble him because they don't make sense.


On our way back we somehow got on to the naming of pubs. I told him that I disapproved of the modern trend for changing pub names because the old names often had historical significance. He asked what I meant and I said that The White Elephant was a good example of a pub whose name reflected it's history. He asked if a white elephant had once died there; I glanced across at him because I thought he may be teasing me but he was completely serious. He has always struggled with idioms because he trys to take them literally, but he learnt the meaning of most of the commonly used idioms long ago, so it was a bit of a surprise when I realised that he did not know what a white elephant was. I explained that we use the term white elephant to describe something that has value but is of no practical use and a bit of a burden to the owner. 

The pub in question was built as a rather grand looking hotel in the days when Northampton had a racecourse. I expect they thought that they would build a good business providing accommodation and refreshments for racegoers. However soon after it was built the racing stopped; there were public access rights across the course and a series of accidents between 1901 and 1904 led to the banning of all races. The last race took place on 31st March 1904 and the racecourse became a park (still known as the Racecourse). So Kingsley Park Hotel was left on the extreme edge of town (at that time) without an obvious clientèle. It became known locally as the 'White Elephant' and in due course the name was changed to The White Elephant.

It is odd, a simple trip from the dentist led to discussions about poetry, linguistics and local history. There are many times when that boy has me tearing my hair out, but I treasure these special times when we have interesting conversations. He couldn't resist pushing his luck, as he got out of the car to go back to school he said that I knew so much about 'the olden days' that it sounded as if I remembered them personally - cheeky monkey!

The Last Word

I wonder about Robbie sometimes, he does the strangest things and when I mention it to him he always acts as if whatever he is doing is totally normal. He did exactly that this week when I caught him talking to the cat. I talk to the cat too, but unlike Robbie I don't wait for an answer! On Monday he was standing in the hall saying "hello" to Dave (the cat) and leaving a few moments for the cat to reply before repeating his greeting. After listening to several minutes of this I reminded Robbie that Dave was a cat not a parrot, but Robbie insisted that he always said hello to Dave.

The following day Dave was pestering Robbie because he wanted to be fed. Robbie stopped what he was doing to have a detailed conversation with the cat to explain that it wasn't yet feeding time. I may not have taken any notice of it if he hadn't gone on to explain the position of the big hand and the little hand on the clock that would indicate feeding time. Trying to teach a cat to tell the time really does cross the line from being a little eccentric to being downright odd!

Later this week Dave had misbehaved and Robbie told him in no uncertain terms how displeased he was. Robbie pointed at Dave as he ranted and Dave (who was sitting on the top of the laundry basket) waved his front paw at Robbie and made a menacing noise. I am not sure if Robbie understood what Dave 'said' but I am sure I could make a fair guess at his meaning - a short phrase ending in 'off'!!

Obsession

I am sure if you chopped Robbie up he would have the words Cross Country written right through him like a stick of rock. It is the routes rather than the company itself that he loves so much, he puts his heart and soul into his work, but being Robbie he never knows when to stop.
I got home yesterday evening to find him sitting in his corner tapping away on his computer and talking to himself - nothing new there! He had brought his work home (again). He did manage to say hello, he even made me a cup of tea, but in terms of conversations I had to be satisfied with a few grunts and assorted expletives aimed at the world in general because he was having difficulty getting a route to work.

I gave up on him, after millions of years of evolution it seems a bit of a betrayal to settle for a series of grunts so I retreated to the internet in search of friends who had mastered the art of speaking in complete sentences! Before long Robbie had dozed off with his head against the wall, I tried to wake him a few times but I couldn't get any sense out of him. I was just getting ready to go to bed when Robbie started rambling in his sleep about Tyseley, something to do with a route not working. I made one last attempt to wake him up but he announced that he had to stay and bid for a path, I realised that he wasn't really awake because he then started rambling about a train driving down Church Road. It was all nonsense, but I couldn't move him so I left him parked in the corner and went to bed.

I know he loves his work, but if Cross Country really want to own him body and soul, they can find a corner for him to roost in at night. He is no good to me in that state and he makes the lounge look untidy!!

Sleep Talking

Robbie can go from being wide awake to fast asleep within seconds. It is rather disconcerting because he can fall asleep in mid conversation or even in the middle of doing something. Last night we were in bed talking and mid way through a sentence he started to talk about 'the Doncaster stop' I had no idea what it meant and he was not making sense so I couldn't ask him. A little later he was wide awake again, he seemed to be listening to what I was saying, but soddenly he shouted out '1955' then dozed off. I woke him and repeatedly asked what was special about 1955, he looked at me as if I was mad and in a very sleepy voice he said 'BR modernisation plan published, the dawn of the Deltics' - then he began to snore! If he is going to talk in his sleep I wish he could come up with next week's lottery numbers or at least something useful.