‘Do you travel much?’ is one of the key questions you get asked when you’ve just retired. My answer is yes; but then we always did, even before we were ‘retired’. So nothing much has changed. The first dark week of January saw us booking some highlights for the year ahead, then we switched to something more local; we travelled on the bus to Ingleton, the next village, so that I could use my newish bus pass. It was, in a miniature way, a Grand Morning Out with a nice coffee shop as the end goal.  A day or half a day can be a holiday if you want it to be.

Sooner or later the opportunity for a day trip with the NHS also comes along. And so I found myself on Monday in the grandly named ‘admissions lounge’ of the Royal Lancaster Infirmary awaiting a very minor procedure under general anaesthetic. The preparations for this trip had been lengthy and had already involved forms and tests at my ‘pre-op’ appointment as well as exciting brochures and leaflets coming through the post. There had been pre-trip nerves, too.

Check in at Lancaster was at 9.30, but I arrived half an hour early as we weren’t sure what the winter roads were going to be like. Even though it was a day trip, I’d been told to pack an overnight bag ‘just in case’. After I’d stuffed my towelling bath robe into the nearest thing I had to a small overnight bag, I realised I had no room for anything else, so I opted for the smallest trolley case we had. There was, after all, no weight limit.

‘Going on your holidays, love?’, they said cheerily at reception, examining my flight tickets and showing me over to a nearby seating area.

There was no speedy boarding. The case proved useful for resting my legs during the long five hour wait for my flight slot. Yes, five hours. ‘Mr X likes to get his patients in early,’ they said. All around me were patient patients waiting for beds or consultants or anaesthetists, feet tapping gently to the sound of Smooth Radio. Most people don’t seem to read. At most it’s a phone fiddle or a chat with your neighbour about the wait and your fear. I took three hours rather than my usual one hour to read 10% of a book (Kindle stats). It was strange to see half the population so inactive while the hospital staff scurried round; you felt like offering to do a bit of filing or seeing if you could help in any way. All these man-hours spent in hospital waiting areas could surely be put to good use.

The gate opened for me eventually at 1.30 with an invitation to get changed into a theatre gown and long white socks. I then proceeded along the populated corridors pulling my trolley case behind me. The bulky dressing gown came into its own. ‘Going on your holidays, love?’ someone shouted.

My passport and credentials were checked at regular intervals. I was asked every step of the way if I had any allergies or if I had hidden metal on my person. This was screening to end all screening; I’m glad they’re thorough, but I now understand what they say about the NHS and paperwork. Finally I made it to the VIP lounge that is the anaesthetics room, where someone took my suitcase off to ‘Recovery’. So that was it. After all that preamble I had a quick take off and a 20 minute flight.

After landing I had a scenic tour through miles of corridor, where the cold draughts of Arctic Lancaster soon woke me up. Determined to depart the day-ward as soon as possible, I made it to the sandwiches and tea in record time and sent for my driver.

There were no formalities at the final passport control. Indeed, I had to push for some information as to how things had gone. The nurses cheerily explained the acronyms on the computer print-out. I was quite worried about having an OPA, but apparently this is just an outpatient appointment.

The tour operator did well, actually. It’s fashionable to batter the NHS with criticism, but everyone was really helpful.  When your turn comes, just think of it as a day trip!

It is peculiarly satisfying that the word ‘remember’ rhymes with November. The clocks go back, we close the curtains earlier, and suddenly a number of opportunities appear which encourage us to draw in on ourselves and reflect.

Our local firework display gets bigger and louder every year, prompting family discussions about the few simple and probably damp squibs carried out to our childhood gardens in a brown paper bag. Fifty years ago we were happy with sparklers and Roman candles.  The token Catherine wheel didn’t usually work. A couple of rockets in milk bottles – now, stand well back! – were reserved for the grand finale. I don’t think they banged and popped at all, but we oohed and aahed at the string of three or four stars in the sky and were very satisfied.

Guy Fawkes was one of the things I used to have to explain to my foreign students.

‘So you celebrated someone blowing up your parliament?’

‘Well, I think we celebrate that he got caught …’

Some of the foreign students I refer to came from former East Germany; they worked with me as foreign language teaching assistants. And as I write this on Remembrance Sunday, I am thinking about another anniversary and another occasion for fireworks; it is 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. When I first stood at the Brandenburg Gate in 1972 and could not cross, I never imagined the Wall would ever come down. But it did, and nine young people came to work for me, expanding their own horizons while giving us so many insights into the Germany that once was and the Germany that was developing. In 2006 I walked through the Brandenburg Gate with a school party, all clamouring for Starbucks. It was hard to explain to them how it was for me in 1972.

This year, remembrance is focused particularly on the World War 1 Centenary, and I look forward to an evening of music and poetry which my choir is staging to commemorate this. But I also reflect on my father’s experiences in World War 2 and his words as described in ‘The First of Foot’, the history of the Royal Scots. He spoke on Armistice Day at Dryburgh Abbey, 1946.

‘Quiet air, brown leaves on an ageing sward, the silver Tweed and red poppies on a great soldier’s grave.’

That is November.

The good thing about setting off on a walk is that sometimes there are surprises in store. When I was a child we did a lot of ‘exploring’, and I see going for walks as the grown up version of that.

Yesterday was a perfect day for getting out, so we headed up The Helm at Oxenholme which, for very little effort, gives views of Lakeland, the Howgills, Morecambe Bay and the hills of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Our walk continued over fields in the direction of the village of Old Hutton and, judging by the nettle-covered stiles, was very little frequented. The nettles took me back again to childhood explorations and frantic searches for dock leaves as the magic antidote to nettle stings.  We did not survive the many stile crossings unscathed.

The surprise came at Old Hutton, when an elderly gentleman working in his garden invited us in for tea and cake. ‘I don’t see many on that path these days,’ he remarked.   We admitted to a tiny bit of hesitation, particularly when he shouted to his wife that he’d ‘found two’, but we made bold to enter. And then, as a reward for our finding of the hidden way, his wife brought out tea and home-made cakes. Over the next half hour we chatted and found many things in common.

Things like this don’t often happen, do they?  We left so enriched by the experience that I didn’t notice my nettle stings on the way back to the car. Thank you to our hosts for their trust.