To continue (after a break for jubilant elation at the American election result…)

Back at the maths & physics department the car was sitting demurely beneath a street light, safe and solitary, though a lecturer-type man was sidling out of the door carrying a briefcase. I imagined the scene at home, as Sunday supper ended,

‘Er, I think I’ll just pop down…’

Silent sigh. Sometimes she half-wishes it could be a mistress.

Anyway, with only one major circlar tour and map consultation, we found ourselves back on the motorway and with a good chunk of Mitchell and Webb on the CD player made it home without incident by half-past twelve. At three o’clock I woke with the feeling that someone was using a brace and bit drill from school workwork lessons to remove half of my head. I don’t normally get headaches, so was perplexed for quite a few seconds before I remembered.

It didn’t happen for the first year or so of being without a car but lately, every time I’m in one for more than an hour or so, as a driver or passenger, I get this kind of headache. It’s usually quite specific, extending from my forehead backwards, on the left hand side, although later it gets weaker and more diffuse. Compared to the sort of headaches and migraines lots of people get it’s utterly pathetic and wouldn’t be worth mentioning at all except for the circumstances. It seems unlikely that it’s psychosomatic, as it’s so particular, and I never anticipate it, I never get it after travelling on buses or trains, and M gets a similar thing after being in a car. So it appears quite likely that over the years we’ve simply lost our immunity to carbon monoxide and the rest of the exhaust gases, particulates and general nasty stuff emitted by the infernal machine.

As I say, it wasn’t anything dramatic; by lunchtime it had modulated into a general hangoverish feeling (ironic, given my very rare teetotal evening before) and I drove off merrily to fill the car with second-hand books. It does, though, make you wonder about the reality behind the ubiquitous drive-the-baby-around-to-get-it-off-to-sleep remedy. A hundred years ago it was laudanum…