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.

Getting the Dyno Rod man to park your car. And other confessions.

I guess I should feel some shame, here. But I don`t.

I'd identified a parking spot roughly twice the length of my (tiny) car. (So...not *that* big.)

I'd given it my best shot: First swerving in backwards, quite speedily, with confidence. Then realising it was a hopeless angle, and repeating the manoeuvre; slightly more gingerly. And again.

I'd tried sighing heavily and starting from scratch; and using the tried and trusted (ha) "one inch forward; one inch back" approach.

And I'd also tried the "aww feck it" method; ending up roughly parallel to the pavement and deciding that was good enough. Even if it was still "three feet away" from the kerb.

I would've walked away and got on with my life at that point, if hadn't been for the muffled snorting of my two daughters. They were18 and 24 at the time, and both excellent drivers. The eldest freely admits she couldn't parallel park if her life depended on it. And the youngest (the one who confidently negotiated a tight and slippy sequence of icy mountainside chicanes on the road from Geneva to a ski chalet earlier this year...) (yes; my knuckles were whiter than the Mont Blanc snow...) strangely declined my invitation to complete the parking task herself. (It may not have sounded quite that polite, at the time....)

Instead, she hopped out to "guide me in" ; before giving up and (resourcefully, I thought....) asking the blokes in the Dyno Rod van in front of us if they could just (for the love of God...) move forward an inch or two so that we (I) could fit in the space.

I didn't give a damn, frankly, that the driver got out of his van with a leer; and half jokingly, offered to park the car for us. I didn't care a fig that his mate also got out, to watch the spectacle. I guess, probably, that all three of us should have felt a sense of shame, at failing miserably to have parked one of the smallest cars on the streets, but no, nothing. I leapt out, ushered him into the driving seat; watched him nearly stall (ha...) as he discovered yet another grinning daughter in the back seat, and timed him as he slotted the Citroen into the space. (Yeh, ok, about 2.1 seconds. Very approximately. Give or take).

It made me think about other stuff I probably *should* feel ashamed about. Like walking the entire length of a world renowned hospital's corridor in odd shoes; in two different heights, because I'd been in a rush that morning, and hoping people would assume I was a patient with a limp, rather than the press officer there. (Actually, I do feel a bit ashamed about that)

Or selecting a particularly plump piece of rocky road to have as my reward after an hour's session at running club tonight. And annihilating it within ten minutes of arriving home this lunchtime. Yeh, OK..that was bad.

But letting my daughters watch a complete stranger park my car because I'd failed?

No shame. I reasoned it was part of  a vital life lesson for them. Learn to park, ffs, or learn to laugh at your limitations. And never be afraid to ask for help (even if there are two, supersmug Dyno Rod geezers chortling all the way home .) Oh. And if you need cake, at any given point in your lives....just eat it.

Lessons in life. (Just laugh)