- Untitled
- The season begins
- Jan 2010
- Feb 2010
- March 2010
- April 2010
- May 2010
- Ski Pictures 2010
- June 2010
- July 2010
- August 2010
- September 2010
- October 2010
- Late October
- November
- December 2010
- January 2011
- February
- The European Youth Olympic Festival
- March 2011
- The season ends
- May and June 2011
- End of June
- July
- August in Yorkshire
- September 2011
- 28 October 2011
- November/December 2011
- Season 2012
- February 2012
- March and April
- June
- 'Summer' 2012
Driving in the rain
I would be the first to admit that I am totally lacking in any of the qualities required by a driving instructor. On the contrary I am impatient and stressy with too much imaginatition and too little concentration but I was available and Sam was super keen. Moreover, the distinguishing feature of summer 2012 has been the rain, so driving, while made all the hairier by the conditions, has at least been a dry option.
I did lay down a few ground rules: 'Stop when I say stop' and 'We change drivers when I want.' I had learnt about the stop bit when I said 'Well done' to Max and he said 'Thanks, Mum' and continued driving, into the house.
By the time his provisional licence arrived in the post, Sam was already conversant with the controls and steering. He and I had had a few spins around the car park at Catterick Race Course (the most memorable being the snowy night where the wheels did most of the spinning) and his Dad accompanied his first few trips on the open road. So when he asked to drive back from Scorton after dropping Honi at dance I did not have too many reservations. Yes, he seemed to think that, if the speed limit was 60mph, that speed was compulsory and, yes, I complained, but he has been a ski racer after all.
'What do we do at the roundabout?' he asked innocently, as we entered the 30 mile an hour limit.
'What do you mean? Didn't Dad explain?'
'We only did the tank road.'
'What? Stop! Change drivers' I was pretty certain that neither of these commands were enforceable in queue of traffic but I wanted to make my point. 'Okay, then, look left and, if there is nothing coming, go straight over..... Oh and stop at those lights ahead..... and indicate right. And, presuming you haven't done right turns at traffic lights either lets swap seats while the lights are red.'
'No way - and look a total idiot in front of all those cars behind us.' Sam has never liked to a) admit defeat or b) to draw attention to himself in any other than a positive fashion.
'Okay then, when the lights turn green, pull forward, still indicating right and.............arghhh ....... if there is something coming towards us you do NOT drive straight across its path as you just did. Would you pull over so we can change places now?'
For our next outing Sam added a few conditions of his own. I must not put my hand in front of my mouth, gasp, grip the seat, or hover my hand over the hand break. And we only change seats when no one is looking. I responded to these by insisting that I drive him to an area I considered suitable for a learner who has never had a lesson. It was a workable arrangement though Sam immediately bugged me by taking my mobile phone off the dashboard and reading my messages while I was driving.
We stopped to get petrol and he took over. I took my phone, put it in my pocket, and determined to password it before our next outing. In a housing estate we got stuck in a cul de sac for 15 minutes because Sam would not change seats to let me manoeuvre out until there was no-one around. We changed back again for a scenic drive through the rain over the ranges which proved marginally less stressful, if reminiscent of ante natal classes: 'Take regular breaths and wiggle your finger tips.' When we stopped in a lay by to change drivers so that I could negotiate a particularly nasty Y junction we tacitly agreed that we had conducted ourselves rather well.
It was a real dampener, therefore, to find, on arriving home and looking for my mobile to set up that password, that it had not made it back with us. I found it crushed in the layby (if I was to try to run over something that small I would most definitely miss it!) and decided it was time to book Sam some lessons.
Not that our excursions came to an end. With a bit of professional advice behind him, Sam soon became quite an acceptable chauffeur. We went to the dog therapist in Stockton, the dog bone store in Durham and other dog friendly venues with 'the dog' (who is improving). I couldn't wait for Sam to pass his test.
And he almost did. The story is that the test went really well, and believing as much, he glanced at the examiner's notes, only to see that he had no 'majors' but at the same time missing a 30 mph sign so failing for speeding on the run back to the test centre.
Undaunted, Sam booked a second test and got a cancellation. When the day dawned it was raining. No surprise, except that this rain had not laid off for 24 hours. Totally accustomed to driving in the rain, and not one to be defeated, Sam set off with his instructor at 9 a.m. The flooding had just started but they found a way out of Richmond. What they didn't manage, when the test was cancelled because of the conditions, was to find a route back in. So he walked, or waded, the five miles from Catterick Village.
Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward. So said Henry Ford - but was he marching waist high in water?