Yesterday and this morning I was fairly nervous about driving up to Bedfordshire on my own with kitty, but I did it and I’m pretty sure I’ve grown an inch or two out of proudness as a result.
I got my licence back home in Sweden about 10 years ago. I lived in Denmark at the time and didn’t really have access to a car. Nor did I need one. A few years later I moved to London and the need for a car grew even smaller. Until we bought our flat and decided to refurbish it. All of a sudden having a car would make things easier so we joined a car pool.
At this point I’d driven less than two handfuls of times in Sweden since I had my license. As a result London became the first place I started to drive properly, only the roads aren’t particularly quiet here and to complicate matters worse people drive on the wrong side compared to back home. But as I’d never completely become used to driving on the right hand side it didn’t really make that big of a difference and I soon got into it and strangely didn’t think much about the busy roads.
Our use of the carpool car is pretty sporadic. During periods like the loft conversion we used it more. Since then it’s been used less and I believe the last time we used it was for an Ikea trip 4-5 months ago. Plus, Ikea is only a 15 minutes drive away. Today I had to drive around 70km up to somewhere in Bedfordshire where I’d never been and with a kitty in the seat next to me who I didn’t know how she would react and if she would meow the whole way there. As I’m not yet a super confident driver following directions that I’m unsure of is not my strong point and I can still easily miss a turn as I focus more on driving safely rather than what exit to take in e.g. a roundabout. But it went really well and we arrived with plenty of time. The odds where on our side as the route there and back is pretty straight forward. The satnav functionality in the new maps on iPhone worked a treat and guided me right, despite missing a roundabout exit somewhere north of Luton. And the one thing I’m scared of, driving in gear 1 as the sometimes means I stall, occurred a lot on the way back but without a single stall.
I’m incredibly pleased that I didn’t cancel our booking with Zipcar earlier. And believe me, I did play with the thought. The ability to drive is such a freedom and by taking this trip I’ve become more confident and learnt a little bit more about driving in the UK. Had I cancelled the booking I’d made the elephant in the room bigger and would have had more nervousness associated with driving next time around. Now I just need to get back on it again soon, and by the looks of it that is 1-2 weeks away when kitty is recommended to have a CT scan to 100% confirm/rule out the thing they believe is causing her episodes of back leg weakness.
Tomorrow – Day 311 | Mental tiredness
Image: Parked outside Davies Veterinary Specialist clinic clinic up in Bedfordshire
