Hitting The Road

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So I woke up on a frosty Saturday morning last weekend after a mere 3 hours of slumber (couldn't sleep- subconsciously anxious I was going to crash in the driving lesson??) to 35mph winds and heavy rain. First time driving was going to be interesting....

I suppose the good thing about the awful weather was that the streets were pretty empty. I wasn't nervous up until the point where I actually sat in the driver seat, but I did have these fears in the back of my mind...

Fear number one: STALLING. It's all you hear about from your friends- 'OMG I stalled on a roundabout it was so scary'- so I spent the whole lesson releasing the clutch so slowly I spent more time letting it go than actually driving! 
An hour and a half in when my instructor said 'I'm impressed you haven't stalled yet did I stall immediately after. But hey, once on your first lesson is not bad going! So I learnt the trick is to release the clutch quickly at first, then slow down

Fear number two: CRASHING. It's probably not good that I was more scared of stalling than crashing... perhaps I should re evaluate my driving priorities. Following many pleas from my friends telling me not to crash, I'm pleased to say I didn't! I got pretty close to a lovely looking white BMW when turning a corner in the car park, but I managed to turn just in time. What control. 

Fear number three: RUNNING OVER ANIMALS (and people). When mum was learning and went for practice drives in this desolate car park near our house, there used to be little rabbits everywhere and I was always so scared that we'd end up running over them. So naturally my childhood fear has translated into my own driving, but thankfully there were no rabbits - or pedestrians for that matter, probably because of the weather - so there was no danger of roadkill.

Fear number four: AWKWARD SILENCES WITH THE INSTRUCTOR. Driving instructors are a bit of a weird concept if you think about it - I mean, you're spending hours on your own with someone you barely even know. But it was fine, it wasn't awkward at all and the two hours just flew by. My instructor is so lovely and I can tell we're going to get on well (shout out to Pete).

 Fear number five: NOT BEING ABLE TO REACH THE PEDALS. I'm not being funny, but cars are hardly designed for people who are 5ft1 are they?? I actually doubted whether the seat would go far forward for me to reach. But have no fear, all was well- I didn't even have to use the maximum forwardness. Although it was funny seeing the difference between where my instructor has the seat and I do... just reminds me of how short I am. Wonderful ☺

 So all in all, it was a pretty successful lesson- I even went up to gear 3 and drove home from my bus stop. It'll probably drive me crazy once I start doing harder stuff (how on earth am I going to master parallel parking?!) but for now, I'll steer clear of all of that and just enjoy learning to drive.

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