After a few minutes, I’m bored. I pop open the glove box. First aid kit, a couple of spare bulbs, can of energy drink that must be years old by now. Dad’s things. I smile.

‘Your dad always was a practical man. Prepared for anything. Even if he didn’t like driving, he did it properly!’

I nod, take my headphones out.

‘He’d have been glad to see you yesterday.’

I pause, shocked into silence. How did she know?

‘Whatever I may be at the moment, Josh, I’m still your mother. And mothers know.’

This is one of the ways I remember her, my mum, back before she was like she is now: hands on the steering wheel, eyes dead ahead. But I was always in the back seat, surrounded by sleeping bags and boxes of camping equipment as we headed down through France, or up through Welsh mountains, or to any number of holidays or weekends away. They were always her idea. Dad would be sitting where I am now as I sweated it out in the back. Dad’s hand would idly rest on the back of Mum’s neck, giving her an occasional rub and he’d ask if she wanted him to take over. She always said no, which was a good thing as Dad was invariably asleep within a few minutes of asking her. Me and Mum would talk then, in slightly hushed whispers, about everything. She was surprisingly good at football tactics and pulled no punches when talking about the weaknesses of the rest of my team. We talked about school and her work and my friends, about what we’d do when we got where we were going. She loved – at these times – to set me little challenges for our trip, like ‘spot five new kinds of tree a day’ or ‘wake up early and record the first birdsong on your phone’. I loved completing them, and we’d talk on the way home, while Dad slept, about what I’d seen, or heard, or collected.

But we don’t do that anymore.

She turns the radio on again, the news having safely finished. We listen in silence for the rest of the journey.

*

Nanna and Grandad’s house is probably like all Nannas’ and Grandads’ houses in the world. From the kerb, the net curtains hang neat and quiet in the windows, and there’s always a couple of empty milk bottles on the front step. Inside, after you’ve taken your shoes off in the porch and walked into the hallway with its bright carpet, there is that reassuring grandparent smell – mostly dust and laundry with a bit of cooking thrown in. Things will never change here, and walking in makes me feel like I’m six years old again: warm and comfortable.