All in a day

My mum, that's really our mum but I often claim ownership, lives in Cambridge. She's 94 years old and she doesn't remember much. Telephone conversations between us are often very, very short and completely non sequitur because she doesn't really know who's talking to her about what.

Most of the responsibility for caring for Mum falls on my sister. I'm happy to believe that the main reason for that is because she lives closest but I know that the real reason is because, between the two traditional sexes, just one usually gets lumbered with anything associated with care. The other has a pressing need to pop down the pub.

To salve my conscience, and, I suppose, to see my mum, I've taken to popping over to England to visit her every couple of months. Well, that may be being a bit economical with the truth. I think I've done three trips between December and the first week in March and the next one is planned for May.

Because of where Mum lives, I can do the whole trip there and back in a single day and still have time to spare. The beauty of a day trip is that packing is minimal: passport and Kindle in my pocket, British credit cards in my wallet, and a charging lead thrown in just in case my phone decides to leave me boarding-pass-less

Security is a doddle. Instead of being that sweaty on-and-off, in the tray, in a bag, not here but there, stripping off all the accessories before rebuilding yourself in public view, it's something slightly more civilised. The security people still do their best to humiliate and confuse me but they have far fewer options open to them. Nor, despite Ryanair's exhortations and cunning plans to confuse me, do I ever pay for an extra cabin bag. There and back for 50 or 60€ is usual.

Ryanair's winter schedules take me out of Alicante at 06:00 which does mean I have to get up at 02:00 but, by the time I've got to the UK, thanks to Spain sticking to the time zone it adopted to please Nazi Germany, it's still only 07:00 something in the morning and the whole day stretches out ahead. There are plenty of trains that go from Stansted direct to Cambridge but it seems to be a rule that I've just missed one and it just so happens that the gap till the next one is the longest of the whole day. There are compensations though; the blokes in the station coffee bar are very pleasant and they make a good cup of tea. I get to Cambridge around 09:00 which is a long time before my mum gets up but good for shop opening. I have to waste a bit of time which usually means traipsing across town to find some non-prescription low-dose aspirin to help me ward off heart attacks (1980s advice that I can't shake). I need a scrip in Spain nowadays.

As I'm walking, I did 16 km on the last visit, I can gawp at city life, well, British city life. I particularly marvel at the number of people drinking from cardboard cups through plastic lids. It's not unknown for people in Pinoso to be, apparently, talking to themselves until you notice the bit of wire hanging from their ear. It's not unknown for people in Pinoso to have a mobile phone pressed tight to their chin either but in the UK that seems to be the rule rather than the exception.

Now I know that cars in the UK drive on the other side of the road, I remember my kerb drill from school, but cars still seem to be coming from the wrong direction. I'm very, very careful when I cross the road because I have no idea which way cars and vans are going to turn. The bikes though, and there have always been an enormous number of bikes in Cambridge, are both lawless and privileged. They go where they please as a matter of course but they also have extra rights with cycle lanes that allow bikes to make turns that are even more confusing than simply being on the wrong side of the road. Oh, and the scooter things. They're everywhere, they're on the pavements, on the roads and from time to time they shoot directly out of front doors and shops. Most bike and scooter users seem skilful enough to drink coffee, use their mobile phones and ride without looking where they are going. It's a bit worrying for someone who has never been nimble and even less so nowadays.

It's about half an hour's walk from the train station to Mum so I get to sample British weather close up. I also get to pass fish butchers, Korean grocers, Turkish barbers and retailers of full English with a bap. The snippets of, often student, gossip as people pass can be a bit eye-opening and it's amazing the phrases that I hear which I would never think to utter. English is obviously developing without me.

The home is rather nice. It's not very institutional at all. Not a lot of residents. Warm in winter, cool in summer. No unpleasant odours. The musical style is not reggaeton. The staff often offer me tea.

The conversation with Mum doesn't usually amount to much. She just about knows who I am but, after she told me off for giving her the third degree with questions along the lines of—‘Are you still enjoying the food?’—I've taken to talking at her. It's quite hard to maintain a monologue though, even for a 90-minute visit, especially if it's warm. Bear in mind that by 11:00 I've been up and about for 10 hours and I only got two hours' sleep last night. It's hard work staying awake.

Ninety minutes, two hours at most, between the time Mum gets up and when the staff start to get people together for lunch. That's my cue to make good my escape. It's a fair way to go for 90 minutes of non-conversation about the past or present but it fulfils my wolf cub promise to do my duty.

It's been my sister who's made the visits worthwhile. She's always come to find me in the slot between saying goodbye to Mum and getting back on the train for Stansted. We've even had time to eat, and eating Jordanian reminded me that there is still a bit of a food difference between the UK and Spanish offer.

This whole day excursion only works because of the transport links, in my case because my mum happens to be in Cambridge. As fate would have it, the airport closest to where I chose to live has good and frequent flights to Stansted and, in turn, to and from the airport to Cambridge is easy.

Ryanair are just in the process of changing from winter to summer schedules and my 06:00 flight option is disappearing till October. I tried to find alternatives with different airports at this side and in the UK, and with different carriers, but none of them would work. I didn't really want to add a hundred-quid hotel room, and the extra baggage, into the mix for that 90 minutes. In the end I twigged that the important thing is the time between getting in and leaving and that a mid morning from Alicante and a late evening from Stansted would work just as well as early morning and mid evening. Well, so long as the trains were still running and mum might be awake. 

It has also made me wonder about what may be possible with a similar itinerary. The price differential between getting a train to Madrid to see an exhibition and using a plane and train to do something similar in London may not be as outlandish as most people think. And I suppose lots of other European destinations would be just as possible.