Knowing you, knowing me, it’s the best we can do

The key is to know that no one outside the car can hear us

Abba Gold on the CD player, car heater on full, myself and The Student singing along at the top of our lungs. It can only mean one thing – ROAD TRIP!!! WOOHOO!!! Except that the constraints of work and study nowadays mean we sometimes have to squeeze these joyful trips into just a few miles as I pick up/drop off at the station when she visits home.

It’s still worth it, though. Some of our best bonding experiences have been in the car, with in-depth conversations taking place in between Proclaimers songs as we tootled around to various after-school activities that were too far to walk to.

It’s also important as a means of not talking. There have been occasions when The Student has climbed into the passenger seat exhausted and just been able to say “Coldplay please” before a singalong swiftly followed by a snooze.

Having relatives several hundreds of miles away meant that she got used to the road trip routine very early on, when we used to switch between my music and her choices during interminable journeys. Tweenies anyone? We broke up the trips with our special car picnics, with our music playing in the background as we parked up.

Although we now have wildly different tastes when it comes to music, natch, we both still love a cheesy anthem to belt out on our road trips and have built up a good stock of embarrassing CDs for the purpose (Yes, compact discs. My car’s very oldschool).

I think the key is to know that no one outside the car can hear so it’s a good way of encouraging the kind of unselfconscious raucous singing that leaves you feeling wrung out but in a good way.

It doesn’t have to be tuneful, just full of gusto. Also, lack of tunefulness doesn’t stop us harmonising in our own way.

Our road trip music is not to be enjoyed when either of us is driving individually. There is an unspoken rule that neither of us would get behind the wheel without the other and fire up Tom Jones. Together though? Sweet Caroline usually works a treat.