A Bit of Nostalgia

It seems winter is on the way out. For several mornings now, I haven’t had to put the heater on in the kitchen (though I did anyway because I’m a wimp) and last night I didn’t put it on at all. And my neck’s been taking a break from scarves. Pretty soon, those mornings on holiday when I had to get out of the shower to no heater and nearly threw up from the cold will all be a distant memory. Hurrah for spring!

It’s a bit scary, though, how quickly I’ve been getting through my Far Side desk calendar. It seems like no time at all since it was huge and fat. It feels like you can see time when you’ve got a desk calendar. Each leaf is a day, and you can flick through to see how many you have left.

Today’s picture is of a car full of lemmings on a road trip. The father lemming is barking at the children ‘Hey! I told you kids to knock it off back there!...Or so help me I’ll just take this car and drive it off the first cliff I come to!’ Inevitably, it reminds me of family holidays in the car when I was a child. Oh, nostalgic time!

My parents had a little red Fiat Uno with go-faster stripes along the side. They bought it second-hand, and I don’t believe they actually chose it on the strength of the stripes. They were handy, though, as we could always locate it easily in a car park. Being the make of car that it was, it was quite small in the back, though I never minded. I quite enjoyed being squeezed into a little cocoon where I could lose myself in a book with no fear of being told to go and do something productive. (And yes, I did get carsick). However, there were interruptions. Sooner or later a parent would cry, in tones of astonishment, “Emma’s reading a book! And missing all this lovely scenery!” and an involved argument would ensue between them as to whether I should be looking out the window and learning stuff, or whether the reading was excusable. How angry and hard-done-by I used to feel!

My father would always have Classic FM cranked up, deaf to our pleas for mercy. It used to irritate the hell out of all of us, even my mother, who loved classical music. There was something awful about being trapped in a small car and forced to listen to that up-beat, flutey music they always play, through really bad quality car speakers. There probably were other instruments playing, but all you could really hear was the flutes trilling, and the faint whine of violins. My father, being blessed with more than his fair share of eccentric mannerisms, would bellow at the beginning of each new piece, “Aaaaaaaaaah! This one! Wait for it….Da! Da da da da daaaaaah!”, singing along and waving one hand so that his man-bracelet made clinking sounds. Near the end of the music, complete silence was enforced in the car so that he could hear the DJ identify the composer in her smiley, chocolatey voice. They always played the same adverts, over and over, for 'Kuoni Travel' or something like that. How intimately we children knew and loathed Classic FM! Even today, though I enjoy classical music, I can only listen to so much in the car before I want to start whining “are we there yet?”

I shared the back seat with my two younger brothers. My middle brother was always in trouble for kicking the driver’s – my father’s – seat. Poor middle brother was never actually kicking the seat; it was just that the car was so small that even a runt-sized child’s knees would inevitably push into the seat in front. He always sat directly behind the driver, just as I always sat behind my mother, and baby brother sat in the middle. We didn’t always get along, we children, but certain things were understood.

We actually had a lot of fun times back there. We used to love it when we got onto those swervy, curvy roads that rural England specializes in. You know how normally, you unconsciously use your stomach muscles to stabilize you so you don’t get thrown around in cars and buses? We used to just let go. So a sharp turn to the right would have us all piled up onto middle brother, a left turn would have me plastered against the window, and poor baby brother would be trapped in the middle struggling for breath. Before my brothers got too big physically (I was always big, as I remember) I invented an extreme version of the sport, where we would slip off our shoes and crouch on the seat – still swathed dutifully in the seat belt – and really be thrown around. The hilarity of it all used to kill us! My father used to actually take bends faster sometimes, for our benefit. We were most grateful.

It was rare, though, that our parents really cottoned on to what was going on in the murky world of the back seat. Sometimes, we’d be silent for miles. Except that we weren’t actually silent; we’d be doubled up in secret stitches at some quirky thing they’d said. Did I mention mannerisms? Both my parents are a little odd, I think it is fair to say. They each had certain sayings peculiar to themselves, and every time they threw one into the conversation – unknowing and innocent – we evil teenagers would share a glance, shaking and hyperventilating with mirth until we were in a state of tearful hysteria. The parents would be unaware until my mother glanced behind her, to check if we were sleeping, perhaps, and there we’d be, faces contorted and gasping for oxygen. Poor parents. My rather pompous father was blithely unaware of most things but my mother used to suspect, but not understand the cause. Now that I’m writing this I feel sorry for the times we teased her. I miss her now that she’s thousands of miles away!

Another silent car game we used to play was fingernail fights, an experiment in extreme pain. Now there’s a game I bet you’ve never heard of. Middle brother always had very long, Nosferatu-like finger nails. (In fact, a fair bit of him was Nosferatu-like – he was razor thin then and still is.) I would grow a couple of nails in preparation for the trip. Then we’d hold hands across baby brother (who sat in the middle), each digging our nails into the other to see who would break first. It would nearly always be me. Nosferatu brother’s nails were so long and sharp! Part of the pleasure was then waiting to see how long it took for the red, crescent-shaped marks to fade. From time to time I’d show him the progress, and he’d smile in satisfaction. (I know you’re thinking how unhealthy this all is!) This pastime was very useful in museums, too. Our parents took us to some interesting, educational places where naturally, we were bored silly.

The most dangerous thing we ever did was called ‘flying lessons’. This was conceived when we were waiting in the car while our parents did something like looking round houses. They seemed to do that a lot. One of the brothers would hop into the front seat. Then I’d lie on my back, grab a brother and launch them into ‘flying’ position, where they’d be raised over me, arms out stretched, suspended as if flying through the air. I say dangerous, because eventually it was upgraded to a moving vehicle activity. God knows what the people in the cars behind us thought. And God knows how we did it – we must have been tiny! My mother was appalled the first time she caught us at our car acrobatics. On car trips from then on, we’d regularly be asked sternly from the front, “Children!!! Are you all sitting down? On your bottoms? Wearing your seatbelts?”

Things weren’t as fun in later years, when even the baby brother had left his early teens behind. The brothers would be lost in silent sulks, and we’d each be plugged into our own separate walkman, if only to drown out the relentless, jolly good cheer of Classic FM. Dark glowers would be exchanged as knees bumped and hips ground each other in the constant competition for space. Personal insults would be exchanged as to bottom size, or in Nosferatu brother’s case, hazardous sharpness of joints.

I suppose it was natural that eventually we’d burst out of that back seat and all go our own separate ways. But still, we had some good laughs along the way, and I am determined not to have children of my own. And if I do, you can bet we won’t be making many car trips!