A long journey

In the old days I can recall my mother being anxious when she knew that I was going on a long road trip and insisting that I call her as soon as I arrived, which wasn't always easy in the days before mobile phones and sometimes entailed a trek to a phone box and juggling with many coins, for a two minute call of reassurance.

This is probably why, when my children are travelling anywhere I always ask them to let me know when they arrive.  However, this is no longer necessary as in these days of super technology, I get updates via social networking sites every five minutes or so.  I know exactly where they are at any given time, what delays they are experiencing at airports, on motorways or when they stop for refreshments.

This is great - the only problem being that they sometimes forget to let everyone know that they have actually arrived, so I am left suspended - are they really still at the services stop on the M5, or still waiting for their luggage at Lanzarote airport?

They do remember eventually and I breath a sigh of relief and relax, until the return journey! 

The photo (C 1952) has no relevance to my comments above but I guess that my parents had to reassure my grandparents that we had arrived safely at our holiday destination.