Five things I struggle with in the gym as a neurodivergent— Understanding Autism/ADHD

Have you heard the song ‘Edamame’ by bbno$ & Rich Brian?

You probably have; it’s been used in a lot of adverts. It’s got a really vibey driving bassline and some great lyrics. Certified banger in my opinion.

Actually, the writer in me likes a lot of the lyrics. In particular I like:

• ‘Ayy lil’ mama, yeah, you heard about me
  I’ma pop you like a pea, yeah, edamame’
• ‘Yeah, feel so hot like I’m chillin’ on the beach
  Yeah, baby in the sun like the Teletubbies’
• ‘I bought a whip, I paint it pink
  It drive itself, the fuck you think? Yeah, I’m rich now’

It’s got that ‘realistic swagger’ vibe that I really like in rap music right now. Like, the vibe/tone of the song is all ‘look at my amazing life’, but if you look at the lyrics it’s all green beans, Teletubbies and calling his mom.

I like it. It feels a lot realer to me. And it means I can engage with the swagger a lot more. It’s an affect, not a lifestyle. Which both makes sense an appeals to me.

But also, even though these songs are funny, it’s not just a full on comedy song. These rappers still go hard. There’s flow. There’s lyricism. There’s artistry. There’s just a bit more reality in the lyrics. Like I say I’m a fan.

Actually, to my ears, this is somewhat of a trend in rap right now and has been for a little while, almost in response to traditional hiphop/rap. It’s easy to trace the most recent iteration of the trend to Macklemore rapping about thrift shop clothes. But he’s by far not alone. Logic does it. KSI sometimes does it. Lil’ Dicky does it. You could even argue that the Epic Rap Battles of History do it.

And bbno$ does it. This guy kind of exploded recently and is definitely worth listening to if you haven’t. He’s got a really smooth, casual delivery and knows his way around a rhyme scheme. Plus his beats are usually phenomenonally tight.

Anyway, bbno$ has just dropped a song with another ‘realistic swagger’ artist that is bubbling up this year, Connor Price. You may have heard about him here.

The song’s called ‘Not a beanie’ and whilst it’s neither of their best work, I still think it slaps.

There’s one line in it I want to highlight here:

“bbno$ [pronounced baby no money] and Connor that’s baby no price”

Now I don’t about you but when I read bbno$, my brain just skips the part where it tries to pronounce it. It’s the exact same process that happens when I see an unfamiliar Icelandic word. Oh, that’s some letters, or something like that.

But if I had been asked to attempt to pronounce bbno$, I don’t think I would ever have gotten to ‘baby no money’.

Which is kind of incredible, right? This guy is explicitly trying to become a household name for his music. And yet, he has chosen to call himself something that noone could intuitively pronounce.

WHY?!

I can’t stress enough that this question is taking over my brain. I have so many questions! Among them…

Did he think that the unique name would help him stand out?
Does his unpronouncable name hold him back?
Did he think about people reading his name when he chose it?
Does anyone who listens to his music actually know his name unless they’ve listened to ‘Not a Beanie’?
Does he regret his choice (because it’s surely way too late to change it)?

In a Tumblr interview, Mr. No Money says that the name just described who he is. He’s the baby of the family and he’s frugal. Right…

But why not use the actual words?! Did he really just decide to have this unique name on a whim?

Does this make sense to anyone else?

You might be wondering, dear reader, if you’ve somehow gotten lost. You clicked on an article about how neurodivergents struggle in the gym and we’re almost at 700 words about something completely different. That’s wrong, right?

Here’s the thing. As I sit in Cafe Babalu, I can assure you that I am absolutely writing an article about neurodivergents in the gym. I am sitting in front of my 2018 Macbook Air slightly sticky with melted raspberry ice pop* and trying to write about the topic I planned last night.* Yet, here we are.

See, I have ADHD. And the title of this series is Understanding Autism/ADHD. The goal of it is to give those who don’t struggle to regulate their dopamine an insight into what that is like.

This is what ADHD often looks like in practice for me. I have a task in mind. I’m excited to do it. My brain has other plans.

I think the usual response to this situation is frustration. Which makes sense. It is often incredibly frustrating to have a project in mind and end up doing a totally different project without meaning to and without being able to do something about it.

But that’s not the only possible response.

Right now, I’m in a luxurious position where I’m not under a lot of time pressure in life. So instead of fighting these ADHD adventures, I’m just letting them happen to me. And I guess to you.

I’m currently envisioning my ADHD tendencies as something I experience but have no direct power over. Like the weather. And instead of grumbling that the weather isn’t exactly what I want to be, I’m taking advantage of what can be done in that particular weather. Sure, I wanted a sunny day of concentration and laundry, but today it’s snowing bbno$ trivia. Instead of being frustrated it isn’t what I want, I might as well make a bbno$ snowman.

Maybe it’s better to think of it like steering into the skid when driving on ice. As I try and drive my (incredibly) limited attention span, sometimes I skid on the ice of ADHD. Now, it’s tempting to let myself to try and fight that, but, as everyone who lives in Iceland knows, you should steer into the skid. Steering against it just doesn’t work. You lose control. You should always steer into the skid. That way you regain control of the wheels. Even if that skid is a rapper’s incomprehensible name. Because, if you’re lucky, you can regain control of the article and actually talk about what you planned to talk about.

Normally I’d edit all this out or abridge it or spin it off into its own article. But given what series this is, I figured it might be instructive. I appreciate your patience in this endeavour.

And, as if by magic, and with literally no further do, let’s talk about being neurodivergent in the gym.

You probably don’t know me that well.

Quick catch up on where I’m at in life. I’m currently trying my best to get on top of a chronic pain condition I’ve had for 6–7 years. It’s called hemicrania continua. It sucks but I’m not letting it get me down.

Until about 6 months ago, most of the medical advice I received was to rest as much as possible. Which is relatively intuitive, right? If you had the flu or a migraine, you’d rest until you felt better. I have a constant headache therefore I should rest. The idea behind that being if I reduced the amount of stress, exertion and overall effort in my life, maybe I’d have the strength to get on top of it. In theory.

In practice, what happened was that I lost literally all stamina. Mental. Physical. Emotional. Other important kinds of stamina.*** When your life is just you moving from the bed to the couch with frequent painkillers you get a lot of rest, but, in my experience at least, I didn’t really ever ‘recover’. I just started to spread into my bed and couch to a problematic extent.

I recently got referred to both Reykjavík Pain Team and the Reykjalundur Rehab facility. They very kindly and politely pointed out that this was terrible advice in my particular situation. I need a more active form of recovery. That includes:

• Regular exercise
• Eating regularly and healthily
• Daily activity
• Reconnecting with hobbies
• Creating regular sleeping patterns
• And many, many more things.

Basically they recommend that I will handle my pain best, if I’m fit and healthy. It might not make the pain go away, but I’d be able to manage its challenges more effectively if I’m generally well.

That makes sense, right? If I’m healthy, I’ll feel good?

So, I’m currently treating getting better as my full time job. Hence the daily weekday articles (feel free to follow for more!). And hence joining the gym.

Now I haven’t been a regular gym goer since 2017. And in the intervening years I’ve basically become a totally different person. I moved to Iceland. I become a Dad. I realised that I have both ADHD and autism. I don’t think it’s too dramatic to say that these changes have fundamentally changed my outlook on basically everything.

So, suffice it to say, when I walked into the gym, I saw it with new eyes. Older eyes. Arguably wiser eyes. But definitely neurodivergent eyes.

And let me tell you, I hadn’t realised that the gym presents some significant challenges for those of us blessed with being neurodivergent. For example:

The Incessant Techno
I have been known to be somewhat opinionated about music (Oh my God, the intro is relevant after all!).

One of the things I love most about music is finding music that go with particular activities or emotions or phases in life. Things like: What songs make me think March 2023? Or, what songs will help me through this breakup? Or what songs make me feel like I could conquer the world? Or, perhaps more relevantly for today’s purposes, what makes a good workout song?

Here’s my workout playlist from 2017.

There are many things I think a good workout song should be:

• Upbeat and full of joy
• Reasonably brisk (to go with your heartrate)
• Empowering
• A little bit sexy
• Pleasantly rhythmic
• Relentless (no slow sections)

The songs they play in my gym are typically none of these things. And it usually sucks.

Noise is a really sensitive issue for a lot of neurodivergent people. Literally. Some neurodivergent folks really struggle with loud noises, to the extent that they are almost unbearable. And the music in gyms is often unbearably loud. To the extent that I can hear it over music that is being played directly into my ears. That can be challenging. Plus, in those gyms it’s always shitty techno. I don’t know why.

But interestingly, that isn’t the only type of noise that can cause me (and us) discomfort.

Occasionally in the gym, they will play the radio. The loud sudden noises designed to grab attention from the listener grab all of my attention. It can make it really hard to concentrate on a task. Which isn’t ideal if I’m holding weights.

Or, and I know this is something that a lot of neurodivergents hate, there is often the noise/music that’s too quiet to hear properly but you can still kinda hear it. That song you can almost hear. Like when they play it at the supermarket. It drives me mad. I often experience this ‘almost listening to music’ as being literally incapable of doing anything else.

Regardless of the reasons why, I think that the noise level in a place can be very important to people. We don’t find it acceptable for businesses to provide unpleasant sights, smells, tastes and touches. Yet we seem to be pretty willing to settle for shitty soundscapes.

Which can really affect both your concentrations and you ability to enjoy what you’re doing.

Which sucks doubly hard when you already suck at concentrating. Speaking of which…

Counting Reps with ADHD
I’m no gym expert. My gym routine is based on one 20 minute session I had with a personal trainer 6 years ago. He said that I should do 20 minutes of cardio. Then do 5–6 weights exercises (3x12 reps). Then a 5–10 minute cardio cooldown.

I have no idea if that’s what I should do. It works for me. Feel free to get in the comments and roast my routine, but I’ve found sets of 12 work for me with weight training. It’s usually where I start to fail (in the gym sense).

Well… when I say 12…

Counting reps is basically impossible for me (Yay ADHD!). Let me show you exactly how it goes:

One. Two. Three. Four. Fuck this is easier than I thought! I love the gym. You know what else I love. Lebanese food. I haven’t had any good Lebanese food in ages. I really miss Albaik. They do the best falafel. Shit, wait. How many was that? I think I remember doing four. Let’s say five. Six. Seven. Oh my God, how good was Haaland when they beat Leipzig 7–0! He’s some player. He’d be lifting waaaaay more than this. Shit, lifting! How many was that? I definitely remember four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Fuck I’m tired. I wonder if I’m sleeping enough. I could definitely do less screentime at night. Oh, I haven’t checked my phone! Did anyone text? Wait… hang on. Five. Six….

You get the idea.

It turns out that I do not regularly possess the attention span to count to 12. In fact, I would estimate that any set of 12 that I’ve done in the gym could actually be anywhere from 8 to 20 reps.

Which is incredibly frustrating.

There’s Nowhere to Look.
OK, to be fair I generally struggle with the rules surrounding eye contact. Actually, a large chunk of yesterday’s article was all about that. It’s classic autism stuff. But I do think the gym is a particular hotbed of eye contact issues.

Firstly, to be clear, I definitely don’t want to be that guy. You know the one. The one that stares at people and makes them uncomfortable. You know, this guy. This guy. Or these guys. Which is easy enough. Don’t be a creep. Got it. And as a bi person, that means don’t be a creep to anyone. Again, easy.

But, and, I’m not doing conservative comedy here, I don’t think there’s anywhere good to look. Again, to be crystal clear, I’m definitely not saying anything equivalent to ‘They’re wearing spandex. Where am I supposed to look?’ or insinuating people’s dress invites attention or anything gross like that. I’m not a comedian in the 1990s. I’m saying that as a neurodivergent, there’s nowhere I find safe to look in the gym. Because my ADHD means I’m constantly looking around my surroundings for dopamine-inducing input. And the gym is not always a safe place to do that.

You might be thinking, Matt, that’s clearly nonsense. You could just look at the TV screens. Firstly, I can’t count my 12 reps when I give it 100% of my attention. If I start watching the Premier League highlights that my gym inexplicably has on loop, I reckon there’s a legitimate chance that my arms might fall off or chest explode before I reach 12 reps.

OK, Matt, look at your phone. Well, I don’t have any spare hands and I don’t really want to put my most valuable and often used object on the floor of a high traffic gym. Plus, when I look at my phone I hold it in front of my face like a grandpa and I really don’t want anyone to worry I’m taking pictures. Next suggestion?

OK, Matt, why not just look nowhere and stare off into space? Have you ever seen the guys who just stare off into space as they exercise. I’m trying to not be creepy, not actively be the creepiest person in the building. It’s the same reason I don’t work out with my eyes closed. It’s odd and it would make folks uncomfortable.

OK, Matt, just look at what you’re doing. Sure, but that’s not always practical. Like if I’m doing a chest fly or a glute press, all the action is behind me. Do I crane my neck to check out my own ass? Surely that’s even more creepy? Also, if I use the hip adductor machines, surely that’s just me staring at my own cock? That’s got to be a no no, right?

Again, you get it. It’s a nightmare.

To be clear, this is definitely a me problem. I don’t think everyone feels this or feels this way. Because the idea of a vague social interaction or making eye contact with someone is definitely only terrifying to people with certain predilections, including autism.

But it’s something that stresses me out every time I go to the gym. I desperately don’t want my presence to make anyone feel uncomfortable. And yet, there seems to be no way to avoid it.

Here’s an example from last Saturday:

Sometimes I see someone working out on a machine I’m not familiar with. You know, one of the weird machines that’s all bungee cords and handles. I occasionally watch folks do some reps because I reckon they have good form and I want to learn how to use the machine. They see me. We make eye contact. Shit. People don’t really talk in the gym so that’s not an option (Foreshadowing is literary device in which a writer gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story) but you also don’t want to just look away. So what do you do? Smile? That feels like what a creep would do. Quickly look away? Definite creep vibes… The single nod of recognition? It tends to work with gym bros but it feels weird with anyone else. I smiled. They scowled and turned away. It didn’t feel like I had crushed that interaction.

I want to be clear here. I am not saying that I struggle not to ogle people. That it is not my strogle.**** I’m saying that I have no idea where I’m supposed to look in the gym. And as someone neurodivergent, not knowing where to look causes a reasonable amount of anxiety and stress.

Talking about ‘a reasonable amount of anxiety and stress’…

An Overall Lack of Instructions and People to Ask
Has this ever happened to you?

You’re excited to do some gymming and you go to use a piece of equipment that you’ve used a million times before. It’s not clear what’s wrong but you basically don’t fit in the machine. It’s not lining up right.

That’s OK, it’s not your first day at the gym. These things tend to have instructions on them. You go look at the picture. You get lucky. The picture is on there and hasn’t rubbed off. It also isn’t one the surprisingly widespread and common machines that have no instructions whatsoever. It looks something like this.

Sorry for the horrible cropping, I borrowed this picture rather than taking it myself. Work smarter and all that.

You look at the picture a bunch. Suddenly you realise that you’re not the same shape as the person on the picture. You might even be *le gasp* a woman. Or a gender rebel. Let’s… hope that doesn’t affect anything!

OK, so the picture mentions a pivot point. It’s not labelled on the picture so you go hunting. You touch every part of the machine you think might move. If you’re lucky, maybe a few parts of the machines are yellow or red to indicate you can interact with them. You probably aren’t lucky.

You eventually manage to find something to adjust. You play with the sliders and knobs until you are in vaguely the same position as the picture you don’t resemble. Then an insecure thought starts to sink in. Are you really in the right position? You don’t want to hurt yourself by using the machine wrong.

You lose confidence. Maybe there is someone to ask about it? It becomes instantly clear that there is noone to ask about.

You look around for someone to talk to about it. You don’t want to disturb anyone at the gym or make eye contact with them. We learned the issues with that above.

Surprisingly, as you look around you realise that there are literally zero staff members there to help you. Which is weird right? That in a gym with hundreds of people and machines that there are literally no staff members to show you what to do.

Which is weird, right?

At the average gym, there are literally dozens of machines where you can put 100kg of weight and pressure on literally any given muscle. Muscles you’ve never even heard of. Sure, if you know what you’re doing, you can use that to get hella swole. But if you don’t, you could easily really injure yourself. And in that high potential risk environment, the gym provides no additional instruction, no people to help and, if we’re being totally honest, no support whatsoever.

And I hear you saying, ‘why not just Google how to use the machine?’ and I do. But I’d say that there are some things you can’t Google. Where do the weights go? What’s a good weight to try if you’re unsure of an exercise? How do you clean the machines? How long is it cool to be on one machine? How do you turn on the weird machine that vibrates you thin? Am I allowed to use the equipment in the storage room with an open door? And so on.

Neurodivergent people tend to appreciate knowing the rules of a given place. It can be hard, if not possible, to intuit social rules without help. And yet, the gym seems to actively attempt to provide zero useful information.

Which would be fine if you could talk to your fellow gym goers as humans but…

People (mostly) don’t talk in the gym
Something I’ve heard from friends of mine is that if I need help in the gym that I should just ask someone there. One of the other gym goers. I’ve heard other people say that they’ve made really good friends through the gym. I have read articles saying that I could meet the love of my life in the gym.

Here’s the thing.

I don’t think I have heard anyone talk in the gym. Ever. (Bearing in mind that I don’t believe that whatever proper dude bros are grunting at each other counts as speech)

I must have been to the gym hundreds of times throughout my life and I don’t think anyone has ever spoken to me. I can’t immediately recall a time I spoke to anyone else in the gym (outside of being shown round the gym by the owner).

Pictured: A man claiming he’s been to the gym 100s of times.

Here’s what you generally hear in the gym:

• Clanking of various weights
• The one guy that grunts waaaaay too loud
• Shoes squeaking
• The whir of the cardio equipment
• Incessant techno (of course)

There’s not really much talking.

Now, I’m not against the idea that there are rules about how much you can talk or how much noise you could or should make in a given environment. There are clearly places you’re expected to be quiet (e.g. libraries, funerals, after Jimmy Fallon jokes). There are clearly places you’re invited to be loud (e.g. concerts/sports games/against the patriarchy). There are places where you can be expressive in your volume (e.g. singing/beat poetry/as you arrive). That doens’t cause me any anxiety or autistic problems.

But I don’t think there are any explicit social rules about talking in the gym. I’ve not seen them. I’ve not read them. I’ve not heard them. People don’t talk about them. Trust me, I’ve looked.

But wait. Which is it? There’s no rules about not talking. But nobody talks. But media and friends tell me that all kinds of people meet in the gym, presumably by talking. But nobody talks. It makes no sense.

And it is exactly that lack of comprehensible social etiquette that makes the gym a minefield for someone with autism. And that’s why talking in the gym is definitely something that I feel nervous doing as a neurodivergent person.

Chequerboard Powerpoint Effect! I’m interrupting this already long essay because I can’t explain this if you don’t know the following list of my austistic triggers. A good writer would have integrated them throughout the text in the background. I have a headache. Here’s a bullet point list.

Some situations that trigger autistic anxiety for me:

• When there seems to be a social rule about talking/noise but it is isn’t explicit. Because I don’t know whether I’m going to be rude or inappropriate with someone by talking to them and I very much don’t want to be
• When people insist there isn’t a rule about something even though everyone is acting as if there is. That’s just logical, right? Like if you were told that it was totally OK to eat the cake in the office kitchen, but then all of your colleagues conspicuously didn’t have any, you probably wouldn’t have the cake, right?
• When there are no rules at all (but not in an anarchy way). I’m not talking about absolutely anarchy in the abstract sense. I’m talking about situations that just don’t have rules for whatever reason. For example, what’s the dress code to go to a haberdashery? It’s just not a thing. There’s no rules about that. Either because the situation we’re talking about is relatively rare or because it’s not something that receives much thought. You don’t think about, say, how loud you are at a fishmonger, or whether you can hit on someone in the lobby of your pension provider. Fringe cases not worth thinking about.*****

Right, I think that’ll do it. Back to the essay.

*Starwipe Powerpoint Effect*

Now I definitely don’t think the gym is the sort of place that people go to so infrequently that we haven’t developed social etiquette for it yet (like our fishmonger or haberdashery examples). People go to the gym a bunch. There are infinite sketch videos about gym etiquette. No, that doesn’t seem right to me. There absolutely are gym rules. We know not to creep. We know to rack our weights. We know that technically you can grunt as loud as you want but if you do it’s incredibly cringy. There is definitely gym etiquette.

So as any good autistic boy who doesn’t know the social rules should I look around and look around the room and see what everyone else is doing. We might call that mirroring. Everyone is basically silent. Noone is talking at all. So I mirror it.

But wait. I love a good magazine article and I’ve definitely seen articles about gym flirting. There. Are. Lots. Of. Them. So, talking at the gym must be a thing? Right?! Because in each of those articles someone talks to someone else.

How come I’ve never seen anyone talk in a gym then? Like, not even once?

Incidently, I considered that this might be one of those ‘very different in America’ things. You know, like hundreds of people at a high school sports game, or sitting alone at a bar waiting to be hit on, or tolerating James Corden. Maybe American gyms are full of chatty Kathys hitting on each other. I don’t know, for sure. I’ve never been to the gym in America.

My gut says it’s not though.

Because I think the key point here is that this lack of social etiquette or a lack of consistency in social etiquette isn’t really an issue for most people, as I understand things. Most people don’t feel intense anxiety when they don’t know the rules. Or when the rules don’t match behaviour. Or when you aren’t sure if you’re going to be rude to a stranger. Or, like above, when they don’t know what they’re communicating when they accidentally make eye contact.

If you didn’t feel those feelings, I imagine that those things wouldn’t really be a problem. Trivial. Such small problems, you might not even notice them.

It sounds nice.

But not knowing the rules can be really stressful. It can make something we love seem really challenging, anxiety inducing and emotionally laborious. It can stop us participating in large portions of life. It can be really scary and alienating. Trust me. It’s not fun.

I have no idea whether I can talk in the gym. It stresses me out.

It’s times like this I really miss Newcastle, the town I grew up in.****** Because Newcastle is one of the few places I’ve lived where there is a general rule about when it’s OK to talk to someone. It goes like this:

It is always OK to talk to someone whether you know them or not.

People start conversations on the bus, metro, trains and planes*******. People start chatting away in queues at the supermarket. Last year, I had two lovely conversations while waiting for triage at the local Emergency Room (including a lovely discussion about a lady’s excellent brooch).

I miss that.

Let’s wrap this up…

I often find it challenging to write honestly about my neurodivergences. I worry that the concerns might seem trivial. Small.

And if we look at my 5 struggles with the gym as a neurodivergent person. They are pretty small.

• It’s too loud, or an unpleasant sounding place.
• I can’t count to 12 without getting distracted.
• I don’t know where to look
• There aren’t any instructions
• There isn’t an social etiquette about whether you can talk to people

Maybe, though, it’s actually a good thing that these concerns are small. Small problems require small solutions. None of these gym problems (which cause me genuine anxiety) are actually that hard to solve.

• It’s not hard to create a pleasant sound environment
• Its not hard to create an etiquette guide for your group
• It’s not hard to write instructions for equipment

It just takes a little effort. Effort, by the way, you normally only need to do once. It is literally that easy to make life so much better for people. We’ll even volunteer to talk you through the whole thing and probably do the work. It’s usually pretty fun.

And here’s the best news! Everyone will benefit. Making things more accessible for neurodivergent people makes things better for everyone. Everyone likes to know what the etiquette is. Everyone likes to have the information they need. Everyone likes an absence of shitty techno.

This kind of accessibility work that makes such a big difference to people. And to my mind, that’s work worth doing. That’s why it’s so important to me that people understand why it matters.

And that’s what this Understanding Autism/ADHD series is all about.

Oh, and don’t worry, I’m going to be a clicker before I get too swole.

Until next time, lovelies. Talk to you soon.

Thanks so much for reading this article! I’ve really enjoyed writing more regularly and it’s great to see so many people checking it out! You’re all most welcome.

Let me know what you think about the gym! What stresses you out about it? Do you have any tips and tricks? Have you seen a living soul talk to another living soul in the gym ever? Let me know down in the doobly doo.

Remember, you can clap up to 50 times on each Medium article (for some reason). You know, if you want. It feels nice.

Plus, if you enjoyed whatever this was feel free to subcribe for more! We’re 59 strong and growing!

Thanks for reading. Have an amazing day and try something new today.

* I am somewhat bold in my snack eating.

** Over multiple raspberry ice pops, naturally.

*** I obviously mean professional workplace stamina. I’ve struggled to work for a little while. I don’t know why they’re giggling either Mum.

**** Look, I think I’m funny. Reasonable people can absolutely disagree though!

***** Unless of course you’re autistic and you can’t not think about it. But one step at a time.

****** If you’ve ever wondered what type of writer I am, I am the type of writer who knows it is traditionally incorrect to end a sentence on a preposition but feels like a massive twat typing ‘Newcastle, the town in which I grew up’.

******* My Mum has visited me in Iceland over a dozen times and, without fail, the first thing she tells me on the drive to Reykjavík is who she spoke to on the flight. When travelling alone.