The bridge looms

Back on that well-worn road to Swansea once more, we are momentarily distracted at Beckington by an alarm. I won’t bore you dear reader with the details of packing the Fiesta although, should you be looking for a car that can accommodate two adults, three large crates of books, a lap-top computer, a duvet, two pillows, a bin bag full of assorted bed-linen and towels, a sheepskin under-blanket, a thirty-two inch television, a bag of shoes, a suitcase, an overnight bag, my overnight bag, one of those unwieldy items that holds a suit and two packs of bacon, look no further. No problem. Unless the alarm is emanating from said luggage. Can you hear that asks the man-child? I can’t hear anything…I’m too busy trying to have a serious conversation about his future. Why do you always try to have serious conversations the minute we go to Swansea he asks earlier? When else are we sat in close proximity for three and a half hours I say to the captive audience?

The bells, the bells. I look at my watch. Did you set your alarm clock for 10.0 clock I ask as we traverse a road conspicuous by its lack of a convenient lay-by. I pull alongside a handy bus-stop in the middle of nowhere. You can’t stop here he says; a bus might come. I point out that even if we happen to have reached this god-forsaken, isolated spot at the very time, on the very day that the annual bus appears, there is no-one waiting in the monsoon that is currently taking place. The alarm continues. It seems fortuitously close at hand so the rain-fearing, double-jointed man-child climbs over the seat in search of the dreaded clock. It’s too tricky for me so I open the door, which narrowly misses being de-hinged by a passing truck, and pull the driver’s seat forward. What did you do that for asks the man-child who was supporting himself on said seat and is now in a messy heap. We push the outsized TV back, locate the alarm clock and switch it off. Job done and we set off. Except now the giant TV is moving noisily around. We make another stop, readjust our packing and continue our discussion.

Here’s a funny thing: conversation flows naturally until the bridge is in sight. I have taken copious quantities of Rescue Remedy in preparation and now want him to start talking to me so I can get across the dreaded thing preoccupied with an interesting debate. Talk has dried up. On the way back I am alone in a gale. I sit on the hard shoulder for a while in the beating rain whilst lorries rush by with a venom that threatens to plummet me into the depths of Chepstow. I put on the afternoon play, breathe deeply and sail back into England. Back in beloved Dorset I find the car has been successfully emptied of everything except the bacon. Bodmin Moor looms on Sunday.