Nobody ever explained where we were going, because the answer was nowhere. That was the whole point. Sunday afternoon, lunch done, and Dad would stand up from the table with the car keys already in his hand and say the four words that defined a generation of weekends: we're going for a drive. Not to anywhere. Just for one. And somehow, every time, you went.
The Departure
The back seat had assigned positions that were never written down and never violated. Windows went down the moment the driveway ended, because air conditioning was for emergencies and Dad said fresh air was good for you. The wind roared in and turned your hair into a bird's nest and you hung your arm out the window and surfed your hand on the air until Mum told you to bring it in.
Then the music. Dad owned one cassette. In theory the car could play many cassettes. In practice it played this one, an album older than you, every note of which you knew without ever choosing to learn it. The tape had warped slightly in the glovebox heat, so track four wobbled in the middle, and to this day when you hear that song on the radio your brain adds the wobble back in.
The car could play many.
It played this one.
The Middle Part
The route was improvised but the rhythm never changed. A slow lap past the houses Dad liked to comment on. A stretch of highway where the paddocks opened up and everyone went quiet. The obligatory game of spotto, played with a violence that ended in tears at least once a month. Someone asked how much longer, which was a strange question on a drive to nowhere, and got the same answer every time: not far now.
There were landmarks, though. The big hill where your stomach floated if Dad took it at the right speed, and he always took it at the right speed, and Mum always said his name in that warning voice, and he always grinned. The one paddock with the horse in it. The bend where the sea appeared, if your nowhere happened to point at the coast, and someone would call it like a sighting: there it is.
- Windows down before the end of the street
- Dad's one cassette, side A, again
- Spotto played with unnecessary aggression
- The hill that made your stomach float
- "Not far now" (destination: unknown)
The Real Destination
Because here is the secret every kid worked out eventually: the drive to nowhere always ended somewhere, and that somewhere sold fish and chips. A shop by the water or a shop by the highway, it didn't matter. Dad would come back to the car with a warm paper parcel the size of a pillow, and the whole car filled with the smell of hot chips and vinegar before he'd even closed the door.
You ate them on a bench if there was a bench, or off the open tailgate if there wasn't, fending off seagulls that had clearly done this before. Chips first, always. The battered fish shared out by hand. The little foam tub of tartare that nobody admitted to liking but which came home empty.
Then the drive back, slower, salt on your fingers, the cassette flipped to side B, the sun coming through the windscreen at that late golden angle. You'd fall asleep against the seatbelt and wake up in the driveway, and that was the whole day. Nothing happened. It was perfect.
What was the one album
your family car played on repeat?
"Not far now"
was never once
a true statement.
Your car deserves better than a cardboard pine tree. A Jaspa car diffuser hangs off the mirror, comes in the scents you already love, and keeps things smelling good in your car for weeks. Pick a sweet one and your daily commute gets a little bit of Sunday in it.
