Postcards from my travels: 1. Ten things to think about when you are driving to Bordeaux

1. Think about the distance - it's five o'clock and five hours drive, 520 km. I've just finished a day at work; run workshops, seen patients, eaten a plate of pale institutional pasta, imagined.

2. Think about entertaining two little girls; bubbling in the back of the car.

3. Think about black coffee, eating food, having a pit stop. Starting and stopping.

2. Reflect upon death. A close relative just came to stay, talked peacefully about where he would be buried one day; a spot in a rural graveyard. When he left, I felt like weeping. In the car, I feel at peace.

5. Think about trees. As we drive further South, they line the roads to shade us from the heat. The trees change shape with the geography of the land.

6. Ponder upon the taste of creamy leeks and chips, at the restaurant in the giant blue shop. Relish in the fact that I love cafeterias, the anonymity, the meeting of people, carrying my tray, being in this strange, multi-coloured, plastic world.

7. Think about driving, hands on the steering wheel, over-taking, using the indicator, leaving it on when you're in the left-hand lane. He says that only old ladies leave indicators ticking. Tick tack.

8. Think about sleeping, resting your head on the seat belt strap, when he takes over at the wheel. Try to stop the buzz of your brain, drift off with the sandman.

9. Reflect upon the innocence of sleeping children, when I see their heads nodding in the back. Remember the early weeks after their birth, the terrible vulnerability of a new-born child, a fragility that is hard to bear.

10. Think about carrying on forever, never stopping the car, just driving through darkness. Drifting along in the inky blue motorway night, lit by the yellow lights.