My diabolical driving….

…is getting better I think. Two lessons this weekend and apart from overshooting a junction forcing John to slam on the emergency brake and give me an almighty (verbal) lashing, I wasn’t at all bad.

Third gear is somewhat of a sweet spot these days (I’ve stopped looking down at the gear stick when I move it into third) and it takes more than moving off at a traffic light to fluster me.

I think I have come through the learner driver pain barrier. My lesson last week was so awful I could feel my bottom lip starting to quiver as I got out the car. It was a bit like when I was substituted / made a substitute for my junior football team. Complete inadequacy. But today I slammed the car door with a radiant smile.

Manoeuvre madness

I’ve been doing the three point turn, parallel park and reverse around a corner manoeuvres all weekend.

The parallel park is a risky one because it involves a stranger’s car. I was actually midway through my first attempt, reving and jolting all over the place, when the owner came back to his stationary car. It was obvious it was him. As soon as he saw what was going on, he started to jog towards his car. Needless to say we abandoned that attempt.

But it was the reverse around a corner manoeuvre that really confused me.

“What I want you to do Andrew is drive up to the turning on the left, indicate as if you are going to turn down it, and then just carry on driving past it. Once you’re 10 metres past the turning, stop and reverse backwards around the corner.”

“OK…But when would I need to do that John?”

“When you do your test.”

“Well can’t I just turn left instead of driving past the turning? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“NO!”

So raise a glass to progress. Now where is that porno for the tube journey to work tomorrow? Theory test soon.