Memories are made of these

Another journey
Always grateful not to be in the driving seat, Esther sat quietly whilst her daughter skillfully entered the stuffed A14 from the Barton Sea grave/Burton Latimer entrance on the second Saturday in December 06.
“Oh mum, the times you have said that!” Esther noticed the hint of a smile on her youngest daughters face as she tossed her fine long light brown hair back and quickly changed up to fifth gear and onto the second lane to overtake lorry, and then a truck from Poland and then into the inner lane again behind a caravan being towed. Esther would do anything not to go onto the A14, even if it meant a ten mile deviation or if needs must car key in the ignition on the drive at dawn.
She was about to pop her second sugar free mint into her mouth that she had eaten since leaving home but kept quiet as her daughter drove.
“I meant to ask you mum, why you are still young and sort of okay, but with a big milestone ahead of you, whether you would want to go into a home or be looked after if things get too much for you?”
“As long as I don’t go out with my knickers on my head or socks on my hands and can sling some food into my microwave then you can leave me at home please!”
Still not remotely interested in thinking about pensions, commodes, incontinence aids, walking sticks carved or otherwise, chairlifts or the best bargain in the world with pre-payment funeral plans not caring about the teak of that particular coat or of the lining. She always avoided those pages in magazines as she drank her sugarless weak tea and left the dregs for who would still be on the bed back home with Arthur.
Then Esther shifted doubly uncomfortable at this thought on her seat as they whizzed along past hedges where torn carrier bags and black bin bags mournfully and scornfully still hang for week after week.
“Why are folk so lazy, and why can’t they take their rubbish home with them? I can’t tell you whilst you are driving what were on the floor of a toilet recently!”
“Alright mum, I can guess.”
Then one of her ploy’s for a bit of piece, was to switch her player on asking if she had a preference but before she had time to think putting Lilly Alan on, who sang with gusto in their catapulting tin mobile home.
“Oh I do Love Lilly!”
“I didn’t know you knew about her mother, I always thought Cliff Richard more your style!” She didn’t say to her daughter, but firmly felt she had her feet in the twenty first century.
Esther noted with amusement the way the word mother was used.
Half an hour later they were in Coventry Cemetery and desperately seeking the attendant who was to lead them through yesterdays city of graves to where her grandparents both lay together. Standing at the bottom of their grave she stood quietly and looked across at her daughter and then back to the grave wondering of what had past and thinking of the last time she had seen her Nana in Essex and wanting to know that she cared.
They turned away from the grave and Esther felt happy, but also deeply sad and then once or twice turned and looked back at her past, knowing that memories were everything good as well as bad.