Hayestack

We rushed through Raleigh/Durham Airport and descended the escalator.  At the bottom, Emily stood rocking a bundle in her arms. A tiny face appeared in the bundle and we had our first glimpse of Poppy, our first grandchild. With her mop of dark hair and pretty little face she looked the most adorable baby ever. It was love at first sight.

“Drew told me to use the GPS to get home as I always get lost,” said Emily as we shot down the highway missing our exit. The coloured line on the satellite navigation display doubled back on itself. Emily looked annoyed. “Don’t worry, I’ll sort it out,” I said, ” Keep straight on,”  We shot past another missed exit as I peered at the screen. The Satnav was talking to me. A disembodied female voice, indistinct, but, I fancy, slightly tetchy seemed to be saying, “Idiot, you missed another exit.”

At last, we swept into Juniper Avenue and came to a halt outside Drew and Emily’s house, an imposing building bordered by a church, a cemetery and funeral home. “Be careful as you get out,” advised Emily, torrential rain swept half the drive away yesterday.” We opened the front door and we walked into Christmas. The tree and lights were stunning.

We had arrived in time for graduations, Emily for completing her Nursing Qualification and Drew for his Master of Divinity. We had arrived in time to attend both.  In the meantime, there was Poppy.

She smiles at the drop of a hat and really seems pleased to see you. She has the prettiest face topped by a thick mass of dark hair. Complete strangers would stop us in the street to admire her. One elderly woman accosted Poppy and I in a mop-cap shop in Williamsburg. After cooing over Poppy for some time she began to tell me about her grandchild. She took my polite nodding as genuine interest and began recounting the life story of her grandchild.  I seemed to have joined the Grandparents’ Club.  I only wish I could have been as interested in her grandchild as she was in Poppy.

The phrase,”I’m going to climb into bed” was literally true for our bed at Emily and Drew’s. Any higher and Georgina and I would have needed a grappling hook and crampons and oxygen for the altitude. Fortunately, neither of us suffered from vertigo. It had been made by a friend’s father who had assembled it using the wrong sizes screws, a thing we found out when I tried to move it flush to the wall.  The earth would have certainly moved for us had we been in it at the time.

We had come from an African summer of 37 degrees Celsius to a North Carolinian 7. I, for one had forgotten what it was like to feel cold. In the event, I took the precaution of counting my fingers and toes every morning to make sure i had not lost any to frostbite in the night. Georgina was less concerned. Her body naturally runs at a temperature at least 5 degrees higher than ordinary mortals. To say she is “hot stuff” is literally true. I could fry egg and bacon on her back in the night and have breakfast already in bed in the morning.

Drew and Emily’s house was quiet and relaxed, as one would expect when bordered by church, cemetery and funeral. But it has bags of character. We saw little activity from the neighbours. The business at the funeral Home seemed particularly dead.   Everyday, sometimes twice a day, I enjoyed the mournful hooting of a train in the distance, a hauntingly romantic and evocative sound as only an American train can be. The low rumbling of the wheels would reach a crescendo then gradually disappear.  Georgina and I would rush to the bedroom window to see the locomotive pulling a long line of freight wagons as it passed by the end of the road. Occasionally, if you were lucky, there would be two locomotives pulling the wagons, a “double-header”, as rare as an egg with a double yolk. But, even greater fun could be had in the bedroom – Drew’s super broad and super fast wi-fi internet connection.  Back in Rundu we have a dongle which is so expensive to run you need permission from your bank manager to switch it on.

We did venture out of the bedroom occasionally. Most days we took Poppy out in her stroller. We braved the arctic chill to visit the local library, the post-office, the emporia and the  Olde English Tea Shoppe where Poppy’s parents worked. The Union Flag at the entrance welcomed us.  The interior was snug and homely. You might have been in a maiden aunt’s quaintly decorated parlour, one who collects bone-china teasets and decorates the walls with them. It was a charming place in which to partake a cup or two of Earl Grey. Judy, the proprietor and an obvious anglophile, was delightful and effusive. She greeted us like long lost friends, a skill for which Americans have a particular knack.

It’s your day today and we…….
all wish you a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY and hope the rest of the year is great for you too.

For Georgina and I, a long car journey can hold a considerable element of surprise. They say (women mostly) that men cannot do 2 or more things at the same time. Well, in my case, they are right. Yes, I can pat my head and rub my tummy at the same time, but I have yet to find a practical application for this. (If you have any ideas please let me know.) I cannot, however, drive a car and faultlessly navigate at the same time. Georgina likes bats (the flying rodent type), so being as blind as a bat generally works in my favour.

“Look at the deer in that field,” she says.

I visually scour the field. Nothing, apart from a large area of green, presumably grass.

“Over there!” I follow the direction of her finger. Still nothing.

It turns out to be not one deer but a whole herd.

“Munich is that way,” she says as we hurtle past the junction. I look at her hands to see if there is an indication whether she means left or right. I suggest she has “L” and “R” tattooed on the appropriate hands. She ignores me.

“I didn’t see a sign,” I protest.

“Why does that not surprise me, even though it was the size of a double-decker bus?” She can be very hurtful at times.

“Turn around and go back!” Her tone is unnecessarily imperious.

By now we are at least 3 miles past the turning.

“We’ll take the next right and link up.” I hate going back. It seems such a waste of time (and an
admission of a mistake).

“How will you know the way?”

“Just trust my sense of direction,” I assure her.

She makes no attempt to stifle an ironic and, I may say, a rather cruel snigger. It only serves to harden my resolve.

Two hours later, a city looms up ahead of us. “See, I said I’d get us to Munich,” I announce triumphantly.

“Then why does the sign say “Frankfurt”?”

“I didn’t see a sign,” I protest.

“Well, at least we can buy some sausages.”

Georgina has the gift of sarcasm. If she read the telephone directory she could make it sound sarcastic. It’s an endearing trait.

Our problem (the navigation one), is not made any easier by the fact that Georgina She can have the soundest and most refreshing sleep since Van Winkle hit the sack, but, once in a car, she has nodded off before it’s left the drive. It’s on a par with Pavlov’s dog...cannot keep awake in a car.

Five hundred miles later she will wake up.

“Where are we?”

“Just passed Nouvion on the Brussels road”, I reply confidently, though I have a sneaking suspicion that we are hurtling towards Paris.

She picks up the map. She and maps just don’t get on. They sulk, they hide things from each other, they do not communicate.

“Find where we are? “ I ask in all innocence.

She ignores me.

I must say, though, that Georgina’s skills are improving. Navigation is no longer a threat to our marriage. Driving to unfamiliar destinations is now a positive pleasure.

Back in the summer, Georgina and I were trailing my brother-in-law David’s car as he took us to see my sister Myra in Bordeaux. About 10 miles out we hit congestion. We sit and watch snails overtaking us. Suddenly, David shoots down a side street. Left, right, right, across the junction, left, around the roundabout.. A trail of breadcrumbs would not have taken us back home. We are awestruck at the extent of David’s local knowledge.

“It wasn’t me,” David later confessed. “It was Jane”.

David has a new friend? No. You’ve guessed it we are talking satnavs. Jane is one of the names of his satnavs voices. Ours are “Emily”, “Daniel” and an American voice that sounds remarkably like Drew. These little remarkable boxes are the greatest invention since the wheel, when man ventured beyond his village into the unknown thereby making the satnav invaluable. They are a little short of miraculous. “Emily” knows exactly where we are, even the name of the road. She can plan a route from home to Timbucktoo in a matter of seconds. It would take me a day and we’d still end up in Warsaw. She knows how far we are from the next junction and where the fuel, parking, shops etc are. She knows the instant I take the wrong turn and finds a solution without shouting at me. I suggest that the satnav will save many marriages and decrease much blood pressure.

I was a skeptic. Now I am a firm believer. After all, you wouldn’t go into a strange, dark house without a flash-light?

Autumn is officially here because the flag is out. Our new season flag was very kindly sent by Emily and Drew. The turkey on the flag looks distinctly worried since Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Who can blame him?