Tuesday 19 June, 9-11am.
Wednesday 20 June, 11am-1pm.
Friday 22 June, 1pm-3pm.
This is a public safety announcement to residents of North Buckinghamshire. During the times indicated above, please stay at home. Do not make any unnecessary journeys. Do not venture outside. You have been warned; I am learning to drive.
At the grand old age of 26, I have been putting off this rite of passage for the last ten years. I have studiously constructed airtight arguments for why driving is an unnecessary evil. I lived in teeny, tiny, everywhere-is-walking-distance Canterbury. I lived in hickledy-pickledy, over the channel, drivers are barmy Paris. I live in London and have no desire to sit in traffic jams for hours on end, paying congestion charges and feeling road-ragey.
But every time I migrate back to the familial nest in the Shire I find myself stranded; house bound and beholden to parents/taxi drivers. I refuse to be a thirty year old that has to ask her mum if she wants to go to the shops. Sometimes I might want to go to the shops at a time that is not mutually convenient! Or maybe I’m buying her a present and I don’t want her to see it so she can’t come! Maybe I need to learn to drive.
So with two months to go before rehearsals start for Romeo and Juliet and I have a year’s worth of excuses to get out of it, I have given myself a deadline and booked the test. I want to be able to add ‘Full clean driving licence’ to my CV and have the option of driving the tour van. Well maybe not the tour van just yet; the Chaplin’s van got stuck in a multi-storey car park at Christmas and ripped down their CCTV wiring. Quite hilarious. But I’m glad I wasn’t the one behind the wheel!
And with that, graduates, I’m off. Mirror, signal, manoeuvre.
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