For teenage girls in the 1970's, when people still wrote letters by hand, it was cool to have a penpal. I started writing to an English girl, Jo, when we were 13 but I didn't meet her in person for another seven years, when I landed at Heathrow.
It was the beginning of my year-long OE.
Jo quit her job so that we could both temp in London and go travelling any time we managed to save a bit of cash. We spent a month blasting around the UK in her Fiat 127 and our attitude to finding a bed for the night was cavalier - we'd stop each evening at a public phone box and book into the nearest youth hostel. We stayed in everything from Scottish castles to a Welsh shepherd's hut with no internal plumbing.
We could roll out of an Edinburgh nightclub at 4am and be on the road to Inverness three hours later to catch a rugby match with the lads we'd met in the club. We didn't need sleep – we were 21.
Jo visited New Zealand a couple of years later but after that, life and kids got in the way for about 30 years. Then last year, I went back.
Our youngest child had flown the nest a year earlier. He'd got on a bus to join the Army and I cried for a day, moped for a week, then threw back the duvet and realised that I had, in a Pharrell Williams word, Freedom! I was no longer a taxi service, caterer, and coaxer of teenagers through exams and heartaches.
While we'd had the trip pencilled in for a few years, it was daunting to actually make the bookings. I was accustomed to being home for the kids, and the thought of heading overseas for two months seemed decadent and even a bit selfish. I got over those wasted emotions though, the moment I stepped on the plane.
At Heathrow this time, Jo and I were 33 years older and we had each brought along a husband. Besides those changes, the trip really highlighted the ways in which the world has moved on since 1985. Pre-internet, my parents wouldn't hear from me for weeks, until a hand-written letter containing a stack of photos arrived in the post. On this trip, my kids could message me daily but fortunately they didn't often – they could see the fun I was having from my daily facebook posts (an effective update to the handwritten travel diary I kept 30 years ago).
Technology brought other benefits. A camera contained in my phone was infinitely lighter and faster to use than the bulky Minolta I once lugged round. To navigate London in the '80's everyone carried the London A-Z map book – a weighty volume to tote, but Google Maps is vastly more efficient in showing the way from Westminster Abbey to Covent Garden and whether it's quicker to take the tube.
London's underground rail system should be classed as the eighth wonder of the world – I loved it in '85 and now the trains are even faster. The only downside is rush hour, when a sardine can would be more comfortable.
Thirty years ago, Jo and I stayed in youth hostels and cheap hotels. This time, the four of us stayed in youth hostels, cheap hotels and a few stylish airbnb's. A converted stable block on a Somerset farm had enchanting attic bedrooms and a country kitchen stocked with farm produce. It even had a party room … but after a full day of adventuring, we knocked back a couple of whiskies and went to bed.
I didn't quite get around to getting fit for this trip and in hindsight, it would have been beneficial. Being constantly on the move for two months needed stamina as well as the legwork required to climb 528 steps to the dome of St Paul's Cathedral and hundreds of stone steps to the sprawling ruins of Tintagel Castle on the Cornish cliffs.
Most challenging of all was Clovelly, a north Devon fishing village. It's an absolute must-see, with cute-as-a-button cottages cascading down the cliff to the sea wall below, but it's too steep for cars and after a leisurely amble down the cobbled street to the sea, it's a lung-busting climb back up. Fortunately, there's a tea shop halfway up selling legendary Devonshire teas - fresh warm scones, strawberry jam and perfectly clotted cream. Refuelled, I managed to make it to the top without suffering a cardiac arrest, but it took some soothing purchasing of souvenirs in the gift shop before I was fully recovered.
There's no escaping the gift shops because they form the exit to every attraction. Years ago, I resorted to low-level thievery to acquire souvenirs (posters off walls, the odd shot glass from a bar) but now as a responsible adult I shelled out cash for mugs and t-shirts in irresistible gift shops while my husband rolled his eyes.