We say good-bye and drive away.

"Thank you for my childhood," he says. Then we say good-bye and drive away. Last Sunday. I look out of the car window. Each mile forward, a further mile away. So much to leave behind. However much I don't want it to be, this is a line drawn in the sand, the end of something as well as the beginning of something. It's the beginning of his independent life, his proper first steps out into the world. It's the end of family life as we knew it. Things will never be the same again. He's right: his childhood is over. In truth it was over some time ago but I had my eyes covered and my fingers in my ears and was la-la-la-ing loudly, so I couldn't see or hear that it was gone.

I can't ignore it now. His room at home is 'ransacked' - to use a word he once employed when he was about six years old and outraged that I'd tidied it up - most of his belongings gone. Things have changed. We will be four and not five. There will be food left in the fridge and fewer pairs of shoes in the hall. He's grown. Evolved. Moved on. Aged. As we all have. As I have. And that's another thing your child leaving home makes you do, it makes you see forward into your own future, to places you don't want to look...

We say good-bye and drive away, incredible though it may seem. And now there's silence in the car and I'm trying to keep it together. "Put your audio book on," Husband says, when we're only minutes away, "that Ali Smith thing." 

I need to read it for book group and I've run out of time. Husband bought it for the long car journey home. It seemed like a good idea.

Ali Smith! What do I care for Ali Smith now? But I scroll down my iPhone and find it. It hasn't downloaded, it's on the iCloud. "It hasn't downloaded," I say.

What is downloading is my son's life in my head, unbidden. Not just the teen in the car park but the new-born baby looking through me in those first few moments at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital as dawn broke outside; the toddler sitting proudly in a puddle in a farm yard, his nappy ballooning with filthy water; the little boy laughing on the beach under the sun umbrella, ice-cream clutched to his face; the child running out of the foaming sea, arms outstretched toward the camera, toward me.

All of it running faster and faster away as the car speeds forward. Each lamp post and lay-by passed, another moment gone forever: a hug, a bedtime story, a game we played, fun in the park, a streak of tears, a flutter of kisses, finger paintings, dress-up time, Play-Doh, Sellotape, Pritt Stick, sticks and stones, programmes he loved, songs we sang, sicknesses he had, schools he went to, plays he was in, assemblies, guitars, skateboards, jokes he told, music he loved, friends who called round, shouts up the stairs, laughter, rows, fights with his brother, clumsiness, infuriation, infatuation, all of it left behind in a university car park, September 2015.

I would not cry, not then. I said, "I love you. Have a great time. I am happy to be leaving you in such a lovely place." And then we said good-bye and drove away. But my heart is still there.

"Oh for God's sake!" says Husband, "are you sure the book isn't there? That cost 12 quid!"

Love E x

@DOESNOTDOIT

P.S. I know he'll be home in the holidays.
So that's a bit of bathos for you there at the end.

Leaving home? Then you must go to IKEA.

A Wednesday lunchtime in September and the kitchen department at IKEA is overrun with mothers and sons. Turns out there's a customer demographic I knew nothing about. Besides prospective parents buying cots and stacks of those colourful plastic plates all homes with off-spring must have, apparently, IKEA also caters for parents at the other end of the spectrum, with children about to leave home. I'm one of them.

"But I won't need a milk pan at uni, mum!" I overhear a boy saying. The boy is tall and baby-faced, the mother trailing behind him, arms laden with duvet and pans, has blonde highlights and Converse trainers. It's like looking in a mirror. Move away quick! I think, we are not like these people. But the truth is, we are these people.

I pick a wok and some towels, among other things. He adds fairy lights and a cactus. We have a lovely time and as we're leaving he says, "This is blog post gold." So here it is.

I also want to buy a car. Not for him but for me. I will NOT roll up at university in that crappy twelve year-old Vauxhall Zafira. I'm not even sure it will get us there. So just to add to the pressure, the sense that time is running out on us, I'm trying to find something to part-exhange our knackered Zafira for. I don't really care what it is, just so long as I can play music and talk on the phone while I'm in it, and that it goes.

Right up to the wire, on Thursday evening before we're due to set off with all his belongings on Friday morning, a car salesman at the local Ford dealership comes up with something: an S-Max, our old car can be part-exchanged.

"Should I take this old radio out?" I say to Eldest, as we empty the Zafira together. We've already removed most of the plastic detritus floating in the foot wells, McDonald's toys from yesteryear and half-empty water bottles, the radio I bought from Halfords some time back to stick my iPhone in just feels like another piece of flotsam. It doesn't even fit the space properly, sinking back ever more deeply into the crevice each time I press a button.

"Yes!" says Eldest. It's a teenage boy's dream: permission to vandalise a car. He dashes back to the house for a screwdriver.

At the garage the red S-Max Titanium sits gleaming on the forecourt. It has tinted back windows and leather seats which you can heat up with the press of a button. It has a panoramic roof to watch the clouds roll by as you sit in the back. It has built in Sat Nav and a bluetooth phone system. It has keyless entry, which means you need only hover in the general vicinity and you can open the car. This freaks me out. Will it open itself as I walk past to go to the shops? Will I have to take an MA in electronics to work out how to use this thing?

We sit at a desk and the salesman fills out the paperwork. He tries to sell me insurance, for scratches, for wheels, for things he says my regular insurance won't cover. So that's insurance for my insurance. I'm not having any of it. He asks me to sign God knows how many pieces of paper, all of which I question in minute detail until his tone becomes a tad exasperated. It becomes even frostier after he spots something sitting on the edge of the desk in front of Eldest: the battered radio. I can't quite believe Eldest put it there. I pop it in my bag as the salesman watches.

"I'm just going to check on your old car," he says, and dashes off.  When he returns he asks if I have, "The radio fascia, to put back."

"The what?" I say.

"The radio fascia, from the Zafira."

I assume he doesn't mean the radio he just saw sitting on the desk, the one I popped in my bag as he watched, or he'd say so. I assume he must be asking for something else, something I don't have. Honest. I tell him this, repeatedly, until it finally twigs that he does mean the radio he just saw me pop in my bag.

"Oh that!" I say, "The radio. I bought that in Halfords. It didn't come with the car. It's ours. He removed it." I point to Eldest. (Turns out there's no honour amongst thieves.)

"She told me to do it," says Eldest. (See what I mean?)

"Well it's no use to you," says the salesman, "I need it to sell your car."

"Sell it?" says Eldest, "you can't sell that, it's only good for scrap!"

I sheepishly hand over the radio. Under the circumstances I think it's the least I can do.

Love E x

@DOESNOTDOIT

P.S. We left our resident parking permit inside. Do you think the salesman will post it back to me if I ask nicely? 
No, me neither.

I've just seen a face.

It's Sunday night at the London Palladium and four of us are here to see Jerry Lee Lewis. Husband and Middle One are very keen on Jerry Lee Lewis. Eldest and I are on a A Ticket To Ride. Youngest is too… well, young.

It's Jerry Lee's 80th Birthday Tour. Not exactly a Magical Mystery Tour, more just London and Glasgow. Let's face it, there probably won't be another. As Mike Read says in his rambling intro up there on stage, this is the last great Rock And Roll Music concert in London. Probably. And despite Going In And Out Of Style, I'll Tell You Something, Jerry Lee still has this - rather ageing - audience eating out of his talented hands.

He opens with an old classic, and one of the first songs Husband ever played me from his eccentric record collection in his room at university, when it was just the Two Of Us. It's Drinking Wine Spo-dee O-dee, although Husband played me the Stick McGhee version. I can't say I really got it at the time, my musical taste lay elsewhere, and still does, but I remember it like it was Yesterday.

I was probably the only teenage girl in north Yorkshire in the 80s with a Beatles obsession (get it now?). It certainly felt like it. Everyone else was in love with Simon Le Bon or Adam Ant. I guess that's what happens when you Think For Yourself and grow up in a house booming with Beatles music. Because my father lectured about The Beatles as part of his undergrad 60s course, and wrote a compilation of their lyrics with one of his students when we lived in Vancouver. It took him Years To Write and was called Things We Said Today. (Available on Amazon.)

For a while I liked The Beatles in an ordinary kind of way and then one Dead Of Night, when I should have been Sleeping Like A Log, I dreamt I was at one of their concerts and that was it: I woke up obsessed. Gradually I saved up and bought every one of their records. Vinyl. Actually there was this Norwegian boy, Horgan, younger than me, friends with my brother, who had the hots for me and bought me Abbey Road and the White Album. I've only just remembered that! True story. Maybe a Norwegian Would? (Okay, I'm cheating a bit there.)

I joined the Beatles fan club. Put posters of them all over my walls. Played only Beatles music at my 16th birthday disco until all my friends wanted to kill me. I was Dizzy Miss Lizzy, probably needed Help, and nearly had a breakdown when at the zenith of my mania someone shot John Lennon. Bang, bang. Happiness was not Warm Gun. Silly Girl, I Gently Weeped all the way to school and most of my class showed up at the gates to see my reaction. 

Much later, all grown up, I saw Paul McCartney in concert (Earls Court, Monday 21st April 2003). When he suddenly appeared on stage, belting out the first line of Hello Goodbye, I was moved to tears. (I've seen him A Second Time since at the Hammersmith Apollo.)

So I'm pretty keen to see Jerry Lee, because of course he was a huge influence on The Beatles. But I'm even keener when after the interval, just before Jerry Lee comes on, I spot a member of staff with a walkie-talkie leading a group down the aisle and suddenly catch a glimpse of a Face I Can't Forget. Close up. Ringo!

"Oh my God it's Ringo!" I say to Eldest, who shares my appreciation for all things Beatle, "and he's tiny!"

"They're all tiny," says Eldest, beaming. (Not quite true, but none of them were/are up to my 6 ft benchmark).

Ringo Starr! Yes It Is. He walked right past us. He's about to sit in the same section of the stalls as us, albeit a hell of a lot nearer to the stage, and breathe the exact same air. 

At the end of the concert the boys want to hang out at the stage door.  Middle One hopes to see Jerry Lee and guitarists Albert Lee and James Burton (no, me neither, played with Elvis apparently). I say You Can't Do That, it's too uncool, but then I hang out with them anyway because maybe we'll see Ringo again; he was up there on the stage at the end, presenting Jerry Lee with a birthday cake.

Middle One lucks out and gets a photo with Albert Lee and a glimpse of James Burton. There's no sign of Jerry Lee or Ringo so I say sorry But It's Time To Go, I'm So Tired and we need to Get Back before the tube stops.

Your Sincerely, Wasting Away, All You Need Is Love, Love Me Do, She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,

E x

Phew. (Okay, I cheated a bit and used lyrics as well as song titles. It's been pointed out!)

@DOESNOTDOIT

P.S. Taking Eldest to university this weekend.

Guess How Much I Love You.

We're home and it's raining, just for a change, and Eldest wants a lift somewhere. The perfect moment to ask him for a favour.

"That's fine," I say, "but can you just help me carry these picture books up from the basement to the car first?" 

It's time for a clear-out so I'm taking some of our massive stash to the charity shop down the road.

He happily obliges, but then as we're shoving books into plastic bags he stops, book in hand: "Not this one!"

It's a book he remembers me reading to him when he was little, so we put it aside. "Okay," I say, "maybe not that one."

Somehow trying to get rid of just a fraction of our many picture books sums it all up: his childhood, the past, moving on, the fact that he's about to go to university…

Can't you sleep … In a dark, dark house…. When Max wore his wolf suit ... All the way to the moon and back again… And all of Daddy's beer… Rapscallion cat… She swooped through the trees… Each peach… Look what the caterpillar turned into!

It's his childhood soundtrack, played on constant repeat in my head. When I'm old and all my faculties have finally gone, head lolling, dribbling down the front of my polycotton blouse (please don't put me in a polycotton blouse), I will still be able to recite the whole of Owl Babies perfectly from beginning to end, and Where The Wild Things Are and We're Going On A Bear Hunt and Guess How Much I Love You and The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Tiger Who Came to Tea...

I loved reading to them when they were little, even when they were not so little. I was never very keen on getting down on the floor with Lego or trains or doing a jigsaw, but give me three wide-eyed little boys and a rainy afternoon, throw in a massive supply of picture books because I used to work in children's publishing and then children's television (Jackanory for one), and then briefly reviewed picture books for a children's books magazine. Add a mother who's a bit of a frustrated performer ("I was in plays at uni you know,") and there you have it, a perfect storm, no, a veritable blizzard of storytelling. 

The rise and fall of a beautifully honed text, written by a genius such as Martin Waddell or Michael Rosen (I've met both, the first, grumpy, the second, charming) is a pleasure to read aloud. Worn smooth sounds that roll from the tongue to fall as a series of heartfelt kisses atop a rapt child's head.

You might not be able to see his expression, as you both face forward looking at the illustrations together, but you can certainly feel his frozen attention. A small boy, lost in a fantasy of owls and hares and bear hunts. Is there anything better than a moment like that? Is there any gift more precious you can offer a child? There isn't. Except, perhaps, for a lift when it's raining.

Love E x

@DOESIT


P.S. Did you see the article in the Guardian by Emma Brockes (this August 27th) about starting to see sub-texts in picture books where none is intended? She wrote that perhaps The Tiger Who Came to Tea is really about stay-at-home mums. Agree!

Delayed Encounter.

It's the last piece in a complicated holiday puzzle, collecting Eldest and the hire car from Ancona airport, and dark clouds are gathering on the horizon. After not one single hitch in our travels plans so far and with sunshine in Amsterdam, heat in Munich, and more heat with extra humidity on top in Venice, both the weather and our luck look set to change.

From shimmering Venezia in the early summer morning, we've made fast and comfortable progress on a high speed train to Bologna, but now there's a delay with the final connection. The train to Ancona is ten minutes late. Then twenty minutes late. Then thirty minutes late…

What's half an hour when you've done 1, 500 miles* across Europe by rail? Well there's Eldest to think of, waiting alone at Ancona airport since early morning when Ryanair disgorged him onto the sun-baked tarmac. He stayed up all night to catch the 6.30 am flight from Stanstead. We always knew he was going to have to sit it out, but it's been four hours now, plus an extra ten minutes, plus an extra twenty, plus an extra thirty...

Finally, forty minutes behind schedule, the train shows up. It delivers us south, hugging the coastline all the way, to our final railway station: Ancona. Hooray! We did it. London to Ancona via Amsterdam, Munich and Venice by rail. How adventurous! How Green! How every one of those miles has somehow etched itself onto my forehead. 

But on arrival Husband says, hang on a minute, there's a little direct train to the airport, he thinks, somewhere near here on another platform, if we just wheel our luggage down there and have a look at that timetable over... 

NO. The rest of us put our feet down. We've had it with trains. A scruffy Italian couple with a baby, ostentatiously beginning their summer holiday, shoes kicked off, heavily tattooed arms flopping into the aisle, had their beat box set to max on that last one, thudding bass for accompaniment for our last hour and a half, which I suppose is better than thudding Kalashnikov, so we should be grateful. Even Fleetwood Mac at top volume in my lug holes couldn't drown it out. Plus we can actually see a row of gleaming taxis from where we're standing.

And now we are all going to die. The taxi driver is overtaking everything on the motorway on every bend, with one hand on the wheel and the other swiping an iPad. How ironic. Six trains across Europe, now to perish in a car attempting to reach Eldest. Who will tell him?

It turns out the driver is using Google Translate to communicate something. "Rain here at three o'clock!" he shouts. 

I look to our right. The sweep of bay in the sunshine, a line of cypresses, the sparkling Adriatic. Really? Perhaps the storm will miss us?

But as the taxi careers down the slip road and we spy the airport ahead, its mass of glass and metal begin to glow in a strange and celestial half-light. And running from the taxi towards the deserted arrivals hall, not waiting for the others, my hair is suddenly lifted and wind-whipped across my face.

I see him. I'd recognise the back of that head anywhere. So now for another airport reunion, family hugs and smiles all round, exchanges of information, accompanied by an ominous darkening. Precisely as Husband is handed the key for the car, the heavens open, lightning cracks the sky, and a deluge to end all deluges begins. 

But we don't care. We're together again. We're happy. We laugh. Husband unpacks his jacket from his suitcase, Eldest rips off his T-shirt, and they set off together for the run across the car park in search of the hire car.

Love E x

@DOESNOTDOIT

P.S.

*I used a distance calculator website for an approximation. The trains were - Day 1: London to Brussels, Brussels to Amsterdam, Day 4: Night train from Amsterdam to Munich, Day 6: Munich to Venice, Day 8: Venice to Bologna, Bologna to Ancona.

And with regards to blogging about Italy what is there to say that you don't already know? Landscape, tick. Culture, tick. Architecture, tick. Food, tick. People, tick. Weather, tick. Really, why go anywhere else?

Next week - home again, home again, jiggety jig. 

Night Train To Munich.

Monday night last, lying on a rod hard surface in the dark, being rolled from side to side, asking myself: just how many times have I heard of a chain of train carriages leaving the rails? 

Hardly any at all, it’s highly unlikely. Still, it feels at this moment with the scream of metal on metal reverberating through my every sinew, and the alarming manner in which the train appears to be alternately lifting from its track on every hairpin bend, like a speed skater taking a curve, that it’s very likely. And this is a holiday remember. A HOLIDAY. How did I get here?

Rewind to a villa in Portugal last August, a discussion at breakfast. I’m asking Middle One what he’d like to do next year. I have a habit of doing this: spending the whole of the current annual summer holiday thinking about what the next one might be. I’m assuming Eldest won’t be coming with us next year, at his great age he’ll probably be backpacking around south-east Asia or something. And I’m thinking that two weeks in a villa without his older brother will be boring for Middle One and for Youngest, and a bit sad, for all of us.

“I’d like to see some some cities for a change,” says Middle One, "European cities."

Cities. Right.

“By train!” says Husband.

What is it with men and trains?

Cities by train. Okay. Mmm.

We’ve done trains with the boys before, twice. We put the car on the train and slept in a couchette going from The Netherlands to Croatia, disembarking at Trieste and driving through Slovenia. And then the next year we drove to Germany and put the car on the train from Dusseldorf to Livorno, on our way to Tuscany. It was exciting, and no more expensive than flying and hiring a car, and handy to be able to load up the car at home with everything we needed, and totally exhausting.

Imagine a family of five. Two of them adults who are no longer speaking other due to the enormous stress of travelling with three rowdy boys. Three of them, three rowdy boys who have been cooped up the back of a car all day. Throw in several bags of luggage and snacks. Put them together in a small, hot, noisy, metal cupboard overnight, one that is hurtling through the night as it sways from side to side… 

Exactly.

“Okaaay,” I say, “which cities?”

Middle One has a list: Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna or Salzburg, somewhere in Germany and Venice, which we saw briefly once on our way skiing but due to a cock-up involving British Airways, for far more briefly than we intended.

“Railbookers,” says Husband. “They’re fantastic. Talk to them, they’ll sort it.”

And so I did, and they did. They planned and booked the entire itinerary, all the rail tickets plus the hotels. And by the way it’s a given in our family that I organise the annual summer holiday and the rest of them just sit back and judge, giving the accommodation marks out of ten on arrival as I stand at the threshold trembling, like I’ve just sat some sort of exam. 

“Ok,” I say, “But only on condition we flop at the end for a week somewhere for a proper holiday, in a house, with a washing machine.” 

And I knew just the place.

Looking at a map of Europe, I decided that Paris would be too much, ditto Salzburg, they would have to be left for another time. And so it was to be Amsterdam for three nights, overnight on the train to Munich, stay there for two nights, through the Alps to Venice for a further two, eight days travelling in all. Then to a house in Italy where we’ve stayed before, which is my favourite place in the whole entire world and where we are now as I write this, as it happens.

So, to answer my own question, this is how I come to be on a train bunk in the middle of the night somewhere between Amsterdam and Munich, with my husband in the berth opposite and two of my sons on the berths above, being rolled from side to side like one of those hapless ball bearings in a game where you have to slot them into the holes.

I decide to give up on sleep. It will be easier not to try. What’s one night without sleep? I did it all the time in my youth. (Actually I didn’t, I was the one who always sloped off at parties reasoning that there isn’t a nocturnal inebriated/high discussion on earth about that bitch Maggie Thatcher that can compare with the unalloyed joy of slipping between clean sheet and duvet.) 

And that was when it happened, that was when the night train to Munich took an unexpected turn for the worst and a spray of vomit rained down on me from the heavens. Middle One was bringing up his lunch from over the edge of the top bunk.

Love E x

P.S. I called this Night Train to Munich because it sounds a bit like the song Night Train to Memphis, and then I discovered it's also a film.

Here's a view from the house, 2000 feet above sea level…

And did you know, a kilo of delicious home made takeaway ice-cream from our local bar - all different flavours - is only 13 Euros!

@DOESNOTDOIT

Amsterdam.

Monday. Morning. Amsterdam. Very early, 7.15 am, which feels like 6.15 am to us, probably because it is. I have advance tickets for the Anne Frank House's Museum, for 8.45 this morning. 

I'd been looking for weeks back home with nothing doing, until suddenly, exactly one week before the trip, at 8.30 am on another Sunday morning, three lone tickets popped up on the website. I snaffled them immediately before realising they were for the crack of dawn. Oh well, I really want the boys to see it and at least we won't have to queue. 

It takes ten full minutes to wake them. Husband bangs his knuckles raw on their door. I ring their phone from our adjacent hotel room. Finally they respond. Okay, so, to say they are grumpy at being woken so early on holiday is to understate the matter.

Three of us descend for breakfast while Middle One showers. Three of us help ourselves to the generous buffet: fruit, cereal, juice, toast, pastries, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, mushrooms… everything you could possibly want, and more. Three of us eat and then three of us wait. One of us takes the lift back upstairs to shout at Middle One to hurry the hell up. Me. 

Then this. Descending hotel steps. Setting off across the old town. No one else around. Bright. Sunny. A warm breeze. Quiet. Still water. The tap of family footfall on cobble. The stretch and motion of tired limbs. The pleasure of unencumbered propulsion. Crossing a pretty bridge. Turning onto a canal-side path. Seeing a row of gabled houses. Long windows. Black railings. A tangle of wheels and spoke. More cobbles, more canals, more bridges. After ten minutes, an elegant open square, a medieval clock tower, a whining tram. It's the best thing in the world: this walk, this city, this summer morning. This is it.

Up ahead, people for the first time, just a few, then a few more. A line, more of a line, a line that winds, that curls, that has no end. But we don't have to join it, we can go straight in. Except for Husband, who hasn't a ticket and so waits outside. To think, we hoped to buy him one too, because it's so early. Some hope.

I've been before, years ago, and now I see it again through children's eyes, my children's. They're the age she was. One, the age when she began the diary, the other, the age when she died alone in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, a month before liberation. Sixteen.

Feel the size of those rooms. Notice the covered windows. Think of the hour upon hour, the day after day, the year after year. Read: 

"As of tomorrow, we won't have a scrap of fat, butter or margarine." 

"I long to ride a bike, dance, whistle, look at the world, feel young and know that I am free." 

Remember the walk through the city, the morning outside, the generous breakfast…

We leave, fold back into the city, stroll again beside a canal. Tourists emerge and we notice, for the first time, the rubbish everywhere, overflowing from bins, from bars, from doorways. Plastic bottles, food wrappers, broken glass, scum on water.

Up ahead, a group of drunken yobs, singing in German, incredibly loud, not yet gone to bed. Unsmiling, shaved heads, shorts and vests, white flesh, biceps, a blur of tattoos, coming our way.

"Shall we turn here?" says Husband.

"Yes, let's," I say, even though we both know our route back is straight ahead.

Love E x

Anne Frank, 1929 - 1944

@DOES

P.S. We're in Venice now, via Munich. This posh interrailing lark is exhausting.