Open/Shut

I took a lovely drive this morning: cross country from Woodford Halse (Northants) to Long Stratton (Norfolk) via the A14/A11/A140, to pick up my 70-year-old mother, newly-returned from her latest late-flowered holiday trip - Prague, this time.

I had intended to drive over on Friday night straight after work, but a sleepy head and the prospect of crawling round the M25 and along the A12 made me change my mind. As it happens (guys and gals, uhuh huh huh huh huh uhuh) this turned out to be a good call.

I left the house at 0405, closing the door as quietly as I could, with chilly air at my back and the night's rain reflecting the cold white light of the sparse streetlamps. It was marvellous to be on the roads at this early hour - the first time I'd been out this early for 18 months or so. I'd forgotten how much I like the feeling of 'owning' the road, that sense of solitude and independence that creeps over you when you put your headlights on full beam and head off into the darkness, knowing that you've got a 3 hour drive in front of you: there's something of a sense of mission that seizes you (me), the feeling that your mundane journey assumes a deeper meaning because it's being undertaken under a rain-scattered night sky, with the vague, soft orange glow of distant towns staining the horizon. It's true that the mood is momentarily shattered by a stupid grouse (?) sitting in the road for too long and eventually taking lazy wing and bouncing off your windscreen, leaving behind a wet, feathery stain on the glass. But a swift flick of the wipers sweeps away the bird residue, and you carry on.

On the radio, England take an early wicket against Australia. In the voices of the commentators - even the earthy, bitter tones of Geoffrey Boycott - you can hear the Australian heat, sun and dust and, despite the early wicket of Hayden, you can hear England starting to fall into the darkness of defeat, somehow more poignant for being on echoey, scratchy long wave. At the lunch break (some time between 0430 and 0500, when I've negotiated all of the twisty country roads and have reached the A14) I switch over to FM and search for something else to listen to. I fall into a hypnotic regime of channel-hopping, trying to find music that's either (a) familiar, (b) nocturnal or (c) somehow appropriate for night driving. In this state, I find that I'm really keen to buy records (CDs, that is) by The Feeling ("I love it when you call"), Snow Patrol ("Chasing Cars") and Keane ("These songs all sound the same, but they've got something about them"). Weirdly, in the rain and the dark, alone and unspeaking, passing a lorry in a haze of spray, I start to feel as if I'm back in touch in life.

Something by Joss Stone comes on - "Super duper love", I think. It feels horribly bogus and manufactured - a strong, interesting voice that can't quite carry off the material: it just feels too mature for a woman of her age, and it rankles. I switch channels. James Morrison (I think that's his name...) - he's another one with a voice that sounds older than his years, but somehow it feels more believable than Joss's, as if it's easier to think that he will grow into his voice through his experience.

I have to pull over to blow my nose (the ridiculously long-lived remnants of a cold). The parking spot is on a bit of heathland I know well from daylight stops: scrubby grass and yellow-flowered broom (?) bushes, Scots pines in the distance, and a lichen- and grass-covered pillbox from World War II (this area was heavily airfielded until recently, when the US Air Force withhdrew their fighters and bombers). I get out of the car and feel the cold wind and the swirling mist of the passing lorries. I feel very vulnerable all of a sudden, and move around to the front of the car to stand in the headlights' light so that (a) the lorry drivers can see me, and (b) any potential killers are confused by my silhouette, and might think twice about attacking because their maniacal features would be revealed to my (non-existent) passenger. I quickly get back in and carry on.

This all makes me think about being an editor...(of which more tomorrow).