The UK

It isn’t that far from Poole to St Ives – in the bottom half of the UK, nothing is that far – but I had to change coaches twice, at Victoria Station and Stansted, so the whole thing took an age. It was a typically British grey day; not a bad day for such a journey. The trip had its moments, such as at the beginning when a mother and daughter, who were both mad in a good way, were making their way to London to see a show. The daughter lived in Aberdeen, while her mum was a serious jam maker. She marketed her produce as the pleasingly alliterative Jurassic Jam after the Jurassic Coast on which she lives. She talked about the logo, which obviously involved a dinosaur, and the cloth top on the jars which was designed for maximum tweeness. Victoria Station looked very tired; the loos had a level of cleanliness I’m more accustomed to in Romania. We went past the great sights: the Albert Hall, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Tower of London. Luckily we arrived in Cambridge five minutes early, so I could jump straight on the bus to St Ives. After getting into the flat at close to 6pm, I grabbed a takeaway lamb satay and didn’t do much in the evening.

I’d earmarked Easter Monday for seeing my aunt in her home in Cottenham. In the past, there was a bumper market on these bank holidays, but we now live in the age of Ali Express and Temu – or at least some of us do – so now we just get the normal Monday market. I took Dad’s old bike and cycled along by the busway. That seemed the easiest way. It was a ten-mile ride each way; I turned left at a village called Westwick which I hadn’t even heard of, and it was another 2½ miles from there. At the home I was shown to my aunt’s room; she was in a deep sleep and she only stirred when I prodded her. She rarely gets out of bed. I gave her some Easter chocolates and we had a good chat – better than when everything was soaked in alcohol and she didn’t talk to you but through you. I stayed for 50 minutes and then went back the same way to St Ives where I bought some focaccia bread from the market.

Later in the afternoon I met some family friends – the ones who came to Romania in 2017. I always enjoy spending time at their place with their vegetable garden and assorted knick-knacks and rather groovy wall patterns. They were overrun with forget-me-nots which they put outside the front gate for sale. After a chat, we went to Wetherspoons for dinner. Wetherspoons gets a bad rap, partly because of their chairman Tim Martin who’s a raving Brexit supporter, but if like me you just want to be fed and watered – cheaply if possible – you can’t go wrong there. They also tend to set themselves up in architecturally nice buildings. I had a steak and kidney pie, and tried to convince them to come back to Romania now that I have a car. Covid and his severe illness, which he has bounced back from remarkably well, have made that sort of travel harder, psychologically as much as anything. Blues won 1-0 at home to Preston that day – it was a lucky goal – and though that win (their first in ages) is huge, they’re far from safe. That game didn’t feature a single corner; that’s an exceedingly rare event. They held a UB40 concert after the game.

On Tuesday I had another early start. My bus into Cambridge left at half-six; my train to Birmingham left at eight. I’d bought what they call a split ticket and imagined I’d have to change at Melton Mowbray but no, I could stay on the same train. (I had visions of buying a pork pie there; Melton Mowbray is where they originate.) I met my friend at New Street and we wandered along the canal, stopping for a coffee in the quite extensive Jewellery Quarter. Along the way there was a park where you could play table tennis for free, so we rallied for a few minutes. We walked through the lovely St Paul’s Square where my friend introduced me to a birdsong app – basically it’s Shazam for birds. We then meandered through the Gun Quarter and stopped in a pub where we met his girlfriend. She is still recovering from cancer which she got at only 33. She was in good spirits; her life is gradually getting back to normal after being extremely compromised. I had bangers and mash – when in Rome – and we mostly just chatted before going to their flat in the centre of town which they had recently renovated. Visitors gradually dribbled in; they were playing a Lord of the Rings board game that evening. I left just before the game got under way. I stepped out into the rain, looked around the centre for a bit, then boarded my train. I got back to the St Ives flat at 11:20.

I’m back. Long story short, it was great to see my brother and his family, but next time I’ll want another couple of days.

On Thursday the 28th I got up at stupid o’clock – this became a recurring theme – and got a taxi to the airport. The flight to Luton was fine. It got in just after 7am; my brother picked me up at 8:30 or so – he’d driven all the way from St Ives. After last October’s fire in the multi-storey car park which damaged 1500-odd cars, the pick-up and drop-off bit is now acres of tarmac a half-mile or more from the terminal. My nephew was very active in the back of the car; St Ives had sent his sleep patterns way out of whack. The trip down to Poole didn’t take long despite the woefully wet and windy weather. In the afternoon the four of us went to Wetherspoons in Wimborne. (The Ws kept coming.) They put me up in a room that looked out over the river and a wooded area, with the twittering of birds a pleasant feature. I just wished it wasn’t so bloody freezing (and I’m someone who likes to be a degree or two cooler than the national average).

At around 3:30 that night, my nephew woke up and bawled his eyes out. I was instructed to leave him alone, despite my urge to do something. On the morning of Good Friday the four of us went to Pamphill where they have a popular farmhouse and dairy shop. They hoped the little chappy would wear himself out. We grabbed some coffee and scones, and I think my brother also had an ice cream on a cool March day; eating out for families of young children is now expected, which it certainly wasn’t four decades ago. I think the expected level of consumption (among other factors) would make it very hard for me to bring up a family in 2024. So much of it is a massive WTF to me. Right, so how many bottles of liquid do we need for the bathroom? Shampoo, shower gel (they’re the same thing anyway), deodorant, after shave, and you might like some perfume and some moisturiser. Maybe some mouthwash and some hair stuff, and that should do it. So how many bottles is that? Eight? Ten? Judging by the average modern bathroom, they need at least sixty. My sister-in-law told me the crippling cost of their son’s nursery before moving him into a cheaper one a couple of months ago. It was roughly double what I spend on everything. Just mind-blowing.

Later on Friday, my brother and I went to the nearby pub where we both had cider. Meanwhile, the nearby river had burst its banks and was rising at a near-visible pace, much faster than the Ouse at St Ives did (or does). I saw that Blues lost 2-1 at QPR despite taking the lead in the second half. The decisive goal was another last-minute sucker punch, leaving them deep in the relegation mire. That evening we had curry and I figured I could somehow control their digital radio from my phone. It was called “kitchen control” or something of that sort. At this point I’m no longer a participant in modern tech, or indeed modern life; I’m just a bystander. By this stage my nephew was getting his sleep patterns back on track. He’s a lovely boy (definitely not a baby but a boy) and he makes very little trouble for anyone, beyond the usual peeing and pooing and not sleeping. He’s constantly curious and is expanding his horizons (and his vocabulary) every day. When I was there, he picked up the word “bottle”. He’s lucky to have such good parents who devote a lot of time to him. This was helped somewhat by my brother’s knee operation last year which prevented him from going very far. (He still isn’t 100% recovered, even now.) The knee business didn’t do his degree prospects any harm, either.

We’d planned to go to the car boot sale on Saturday, but the flood put paid to that, so we had coffee in Wimborne instead. It turned into a sunny day, and in the afternoon we met a friend of my brother’s in a pub and had three pints apiece in the beer garden; I can’t remember when I last drank that much. We didn’t realise that the Boat Race, which Cambridge won, was happening at that time. When we got back we saw the final of Gladiators. The original programme in the nineties was Mum’s favourite; exhausted from a week of teaching, she’d blob out on the sofa for two hours and watch Gladiators followed by Blind Date. That night my brother showed me his ultra-precision short-wave military radio. A piece of kit dating from the eighties, it boasts an eight-foot antenna. We played around with it, picking up distant stations including a rather creepy Russian one which was sending out coded signals.

The clocks went forward on Saturday night, and on Easter Sunday morning it was time to say goodbye as I had a long old bus (or, as they say, coach) journey in store.

I’m enjoying the cooler weather. Even in the first half of October the heat sapped me of energy, but now it’s like being in New Zealand again. I’m sleeping much better. Also, getting over those two hurdles has helped me to relax more. Not as many stress-inducing WhatsApp messages about things I don’t fully understand.

Dad only has a few days left until he goes back to New Zealand. He’s looking forward to it. This trip has provoked considerable anxiety in him; it’s been sad to see. Years ago, when his mother was still alive, he’d make the trip to the UK and not think anything of it. In fact he still felt more at home there than in New Zealand. I asked him what had changed. The UK being a country in decline? Just a case of getting old? No, he said that undoubtedly it was technology. The modern requirement to be connected all the time has made his time in the UK a misery. One minute Skype wasn’t working, then Outlook, then something else on his phone. It was like he was discussing a debilitating medical condition that could compromise his vital functions at any moment. He longed for the simplicity of physical maps and people at desks selling train tickets. I sympathise with Dad because I’ve found tech to be increasingly invasive. I want to use it when I need it, then forget about it. Yesterday I had to visit the bank; my query that was supposed to be about transferring money degenerated into talk of passwords and PIN codes and apps. I simply didn’t want to know.

Dad’s trip hasn’t been all bad. When I spoke to him last night he’d just been over to see some friends. On his near-daily visits to his sister, he’s had quite long chats with her that have often brought up memories of happier times. He said his last visit will be a tough one – it might well be the last time he sees her.

As for Mum, she’s doing pretty well. We can now make WhatsApp calls, and last time she gave me a quick video tour of the renovation. It’s all taking shape and looking increasingly housey and kitcheny. Mum has been winning golf competitions and even won a Melbourne Cup sweepstake at the golf club earlier this week. I told her that she and Dad should use her winnings to go out for a proper slap-up meal when he gets back. One day last week she was annoyed with Dad for going on about his technological woes when she’d been painting walls all day and hadn’t spoken to anyone else. She’s been exasperated at Dad’s lack of technological dexterity, when in reality she’s at the same level.

My parents have never been into tech, and when they did buy a gadget it was usually cheap and crappy. My classmates at school were constantly talking about the films they’d seen on video (a VCR that might have set their parents back a month’s salary – these things were expensive) but we didn’t get a video recorder until Dad bought one from a car boot sale when I was 16.

I’m about to have a two-hour online lesson with the boy I made cry back in January. Her mother just told me. Shoot me now.