Hitting the road with The Student and cheesy music

As my regular reader is aware, I used to enjoy a road trip with The Teenager, relishing the opportunity for long chats and shared music after all those years of taxiing a small person on short journeys. Imagine my joy when The Student found time to accompany me on a visit to a poorly relative for a couple of days recently. From dreading a five-hour journey, it became a road trip to look forward to.

As someone with many relatives in many inconvenient, far-flung locations, much of my adult life has been spent trying to cram as many long-haul trips into weekends and days off as possible.

I’m used to travelling by train or car and these journeys have become less tedious with the introduction of podcasts etc.

However, nothing beats a good old mother and daughter road trip. Proper car sweets; two stops – one for coffee, one for lunch – at exactly the same places where we’ve always stopped on this journey; spirited debates on the issues of the day; a snooze for the passenger while the driver listens to Radio 4 and then the trip really gets going with the obligatory introduction of the Abba Gold CD (yes, CD. Ask your grandparents, kids.)

While many things have changed over the years, including our tastes in music, we are still able to sing along with gusto to many of the cheesy retro tracks we’ve always enjoyed on our road trips and frankly we’re not proud – sometimes SClub7 is brought into play, reminding us of all those “Now that’s what I call music” purchases with precious pocket money.

We also like a cheeky bit of T.Rex, which has been shamelessly foisted on The Student in cars since she was The Toddler.

There are certain landmarks we like to discuss when we pass - “If I lived there …” – but mainly we’re in our own bubble.

It somehow eats up the miles when we get into our road trip routines and makes the journey seem to take less than half the time it does when I go by myself.

I guess that’s what happens when you Reach For The Stars.

We’re still able to sing along with gusto to many of the retro tracks