Learner driver: PLEASE pass!

I`m a nosy parker at the best of times. But being two floors up, I have access to a busy view of town.... my eyes often out on stalks; my mind racing about the scenes playing out below.

Most of the drama surrounds a nearby driving test centre. I see learners parking, looking under the bonnet with their instructor for final checks, and going off to meet their maker. Well...examiner.

Sometimes, I see them returning--and if I do, I have to wait until I know whether they've passed or failed. It can take a while. There's stuff to sign. So all I have to go on, is body language. Wringing of hands...or relaxing of shoulders?

It happened just now. A lad came back with the examiner, and I could see quite an animated conversation going on, before the official handed him some paperwork, got out, and walked back to base. The lad sat there, motionless. Five minutes later, he got out of the car and someone, his Dad, probably, approached him from the other side of the street. They hugged. Still wasn't sure. Then the lad peeled the L plates off the car..they both got in...lad at the wheel...and drove off; smiling.


It's two years since youngest daughter Alice passed her test, just five months after her 17th birthday.I remember the mix of pride and relief. No more frozen tweets from dark winter car parks outside rehearsals, or parking tactfully round the corner from late night parties. Sure, you feel anxious for a while. But only months after that, I found myself in the passenger seat with 'baby driver' (by then working as an au pair...) as she negotiated icy hairpin bends through the mountains to take me to lunch and a spa treatment at a Swiss ski resort. And later drove us both, in her own car, to Normandy; motorways, car ferry--no worries.

I`m sure my parents never relaxed.They probably thought they'd be driving me home from parties into their dotage...as my first and second driving tests came and went. Then the third. (Nobody could think of anything reassuring to say to me by this stage. They all looked a bit embarrassed. I think they'd all given up). Then the fourth. (It's OK, I passed fourth time.) I hugged the examiner, then burst into tears. I still had panda, mascara smeared eyes when I got home--and no mobile to call mum in those days--so she took one look at me and put the kettle on ; convinced I'd failed, and was heading for driving test number five.

Yeh, the M25 is still a bitch, and punctures usually only happen in horizontal rain, but there are lots of little things that can make driving pleasurable. First exits on massive roundabouts, for example. Always a joy.

Driving gives you real freedom to go anywhere, any time. Like Aberdovey on a sunny Sunday. Or on a wet Wednesday, really.You can head out on late night chocolate mercy dashes. And sing whatever you choose, at the top of your voice, with nobody complaining. So--well done to anyone in the street below, passing their test today. But if you're the one with the slumped shoulders and the wrong kind of paperwork from the examiner, don't worry. It'll be your turn to peel the plates off soon.

Baby, you can drive my...Popemobile....

(Follow me on Twitter! @janemcintyre12  and also @normandycottage  )

........so this little baby`s up for hire at 250 euros an hour. Interested? You need to contact Paddy Dunning. He`s the Irish businessman who inherited the Popemobile, made famous during the Pontiff`s 1979 trip to the Emerald Isle, along with a wax museum.

A quick buff up and it`s ready for you to borrow. Paddy reportedly took  his auntie back to the airport in it. She`s a nun, y`know..and her trip made her the talk of Rome.

What you drive can have that effect, can`t it? You know...turn heads in the street. Evoke envy. Make people think you`re doing damn well for yourself. Or lead to uproarious laughter and downright derision.

My dad used to have a Ford 8. Really. He lent it to my Uncle Jim for his driving test. Then hid in a shop doorway on the test route to watch the fun unfold. What he`d "forgotten" to tell Jim, was that the passenger seat had rather loose fixings. With immaculate timing, Dad heard the motor spluttering down the street just in time to emerge from his hiding place, to see Jim at the wheel, as the car kangarooed past, with the driving examiner on his back, with his size eights flat up on the car roof. Loose fixings, see. *

I could never trust a car. Or love one, really. I was so deeply traumatised as a new driver by cute little motors which promised the world, but couldn`t even get me over the Hog`s Back without the aid of a breakdown truck.This was before the days of mobile phones, remember.Once, I was attempting to drive from dad`s place in Kent, back to an early newsreading shift in Southampton in a white Mini 1000. It was late, dark, rainy and cold, and there wasn`t a single house in sight when the engine decided to splutter and die. I swore, shivered a lot, whacked on the hazard lights, and may have cried. OK, I cried. There was no earthly point looking under the bonnet. So I decided to just sit there until dawn broke. By which time the radio station in question would have missed several bulletins and hopefully decided to send the radiocar out for its reader.

Luckily, an AA recovery driver had passed me on the other side of the dual carriageway, on his way to a call out. Two hours later, he was on his way home, saw my by now, very faint hazard lights, and stopped. By this time I was frozen with cold and fear and may have hugged him. Don`t ask me what was wrong with the thing, but he fixed it, and I made it home for an hour`s kip and a shower, in time to slide into the newsreader`s chair to say..."It`s six o clock; Jane McIntyre reporting..." Just.

Several more second hand cars received a vicious, John Cleese-like kicking for letting me down at crucial moments, before I decided to bite the bullet and find a brand new one, under warranty and through one of those lease deals. I truly didn`t care what it was. I rang round every main dealer in town and asked what the monthly rate was for their cheapest model. I cut back on other things (clothes, shoes, boots, nights out.... ) and clinched the deal. Four lease cars down the line, I`m happy driving alone and far from home again. But as to what it looks like, and how fast it goes ? Don`t give a damn. There`ll always be someone who has to have the biggest, shiniest, newest motor in the car park. A head turner. A headline maker. But as long as I`m driving something (anything...) which gets me from A to B...it`ll never be me.

*Yes, he failed.

+What was your first car? And your worst? Ever been let down by your car at a really crucial moment? And how do you feel about cars as status symbols...? Love to know what you think...!  

@janemcintyre12 Loved it! Perhaps you'd like to read about "my motors?" http://jpw-theaverageman.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/my-motors.html?m=1 … Hope you like it!<<