Mrs B is on a mission and it's driving me mad
My patience is being sorely tested at the moment.
Thanks to Mrs B's decision to learn something that hitherto has remained beyond her skill set, I'm grinding my teeth a good deal more often than usual.
Mrs B is learning to drive. More accurately, Mrs B is learning to drive AGAIN.
Having taken lessons a few years ago she gave up when the combination of being short and eight months pregnant (thus with seat as far forward as it would go her 'bump' was alarmingly close to the steering wheel), she had to hang up her driving gloves without actually taking her test.
Four years on and our daughter's growth and increasingly busy social life means Mrs B has had to eschew the mother-with-child-seat pushbike and don her L-plates once more.
Under the expert tuition of Paul from PDW she passed her theory test with full marks. My life has been utter misery ever since!
Every time I teeter over the speed limit she's there, Jack Russell-like, yapping in my ear.
And if it's not my speed she's berating me for, it's the position of my hands on the wheel – or the fact that I can't actually instantly recall the overall stopping distance at 50mph.
Or what the correct signage for a vehicle carrying over-excited wild animals/nuclear waste/the spoils of a diamond raid is.
But while having a back seat driver is highly vexing, I am forced to admit if I had to sit my driving test again I'm not convinced I would pass.
Talking with colleagues last week it seems I'm not alone.
Many of us took our driving tests before the theory test and hazard perception test became compulsory.
And the general consensus was we would all struggle to pass now.
The cynic in me wonders if making the test harder isn't simply a revenue generator for the government (more people will fail and then have to pay to sit it again), but I suppose the argument that it teaches people to be better, safer and more responsible drivers is a pretty convincing one.
But none of this makes my life, at the present time, any easier.
When she's not starting yet another sentence with 'Paul says…' then Mrs B is muttering about the car she's going to need 'very soon, Duncan'.
So, I'm doomed. It's either earache or expense – and it's driving me round the bend!
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Weather for Chichester
Wednesday 30 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 12 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 21 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 13 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 25 mph
Wind direction: West
