From One Extreme To The Other

I can honestly say that in the space of around a week I have fully transformed from my WORST ever driving lesson to the BEST ever.

Last week I did an evening lesson and after a 3 week break, it was the worst lesson I've ever endured. I messed up on the gears, I didn't get the handbrake right every time and I hit the kerb - not once, not twice but THREE times! I have never once hit a kerb. Then I topped it all off by stalling the engine twice.

The only silver lining in a truly awful scenario that had me hating cars, hating roads and hating my instructor was that he said I picked up the 3 point turn (turn in the road) incredibly fast and had got it right very first time. In fact he said it's the best first attempt he'd seen for a very long time.  He was also very impressed with how I found it easy to do roundabouts and had the ability and confidence to deal with lane changes on roundabouts and on approaches to junctions that involves more than one lane.

That was probably the saving grace that stopped me throwing in the towel there and then.

However, I am not the type to give up easily and booked a lesson for yesterday morning all the same. My instructor promised that if I felt confident we could try a dual carriageway. I was given a ten minute talk and he showed me how to do slip roads and come off at junctions. He was questioning me all the time rather than just giving the straight talk so it was re-affirming the knowledge I had. He was impressed I knew about how to get in the right lanes at the right time and I would have had a go driving on the dual carriageway had the weather been a little better. The surface spray was really quite heavy and it seemed a day for caravans and lorries. We decided to give it a miss and maybe make a point of doing it on the next lesson.

I got my gear changes spot on, I did well pulling up to the side of the road and got the full sequence of pulling into my road spot on for the first time without any silly mistakes. I was comfortable the whole lesson and feeling much better with the braking and everything overall.Even my instructor said how much better I did overall and that I was getting it all together now and that it truly was my best lesson yet.  I still have a bit of confidence to work on but yesterdays lesson really did help.

I am looking forward to my next lesson and whatever we may cover then.