During today's driving lesson, despite it being the first lesson for a while I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I was no where near as rusty as I had expected. Although my driving was not as good as I had come to expect from myself, it was a lot better than had foreseen the day before the lesson.
The focus of today's lesson was to work on the finer points of driving such as the dreaded reverse parallel park. Despite being quite comfortable in most situations and not being one to panic, I found it quite a daunting prospect to have thousands of pounds worth of vehicle under my control considering my relative lack of experience. Nothing, however, despite my nervous disposition went wrong and I calmly and smoothly executed the maneuver a number of times. Parallel parking was not the only first in todays lesson, as we were soon driving around the streets of Cheltenham and found ourselves cruising down a main road doing the national speed limit, 60 MPH, the fastest I had ever driven! Although not a big deal to most experienced drivers it was a new and quite scary experience for me. It felt like the car was not so much in my control and I felt as if the slightest knock or hesitation could potentially put me and my driving instructor in the ditch, luckily nothing happened and we exited the main safely with out a hitch.
I drove myself home safely and we went over what we had covered to day and what we would do next week. I left the car feeling as if I had achieved something else in my driving experience.

When I got into the car this morning my main aim was to make sure that I could start today’s lesson of with the same skill that I had become accustomed to at the end of my lessons, after having warmed up so to speak. It appeared that this was a little to much to hope for and although no where near as shaky a start as last week, it was not at the standard I had hoped, however, it showed improvement. The focus of today’s lesson was to be the reversing backwards into a space on the side of the road that was no more that two car lengths long. I was a bit dubious as to how good I would be at this manoeuvre as I had next to no experience at reversing in a straight line, not to mention in a parking situation. Initially I found that I had the required spatially awareness to deal with it quite respectable and I found the first few attempts in an imaginary space fairly easy.
We soon moved on to trying to tackle some more challenging examples equating to this manoeuvre. Whilst in the process of trying to navigate backwards into this very tight space on a relatively small road we were confronted by an incredibly irritable man who had no patience and decided that he was not going to wait. So after forcing his way past whilst shouting at me out of the window we were finally ready to carry on with the manoeuvre, I came to the conclusion that he must have either really needed the toilet or he had just found out about his wife’s relations with the milkman. However, after this little run in the manoeuvre went down very smoothly and after it we were ready to go home and that concluded the lesson.

Lesson 9 & 10 Junctions (experianced) & Turn in the Road

When I stepped into the driving seat on the sunny afternoon that was Friday 20th of February, it felt just like the first time I had sat behind the wheel of a car. This was largely due to the fact that it was the first lesson that I’d had in almost 3 weeks. Initially the snow had prevented me from driving but a poorly timed illness soon stopped me after that. We set off and as was to be expected it was a very rusty start with me struggling to find my feet and messing up a number of junctions, I knew that I could do better but for some reason no matter how hard I tried my driving was poor at best. To my relief, we soon pulled over to discuss what we would cover. I expressed my disappointment at how badly I was doing but Simon was very reassuring and told me that it was to be expected.
We then proceeded to discuss the manoeuvre that we would be trying to execute, a turn in the road. To my surprise, and Simons, it came relatively naturally to me and I had little trouble getting the knack of it despite a cat trying to spoil my best efforts.

This success acted as a kind of confidence boost and before long I was driving more naturally and in many ways better than I had done before. I felt that my driving was showing much more fluency than it had ever done before and I felt incredible comfortable and care free. Simon also noticed this improvement and gave praise were it was due. Still, it was not without mistakes as I still made them, just no where near on the same frequency that I had at the beginning of the lesson or in previous lessons that I’d had.
At the end of the lesson I drove myself home through the rush hour traffic with comparative ease and at no point did I feel out of my depth or uncomfortable. During this lesson I felt that I had made a massive amount of progress and I got the impression that Simon was impressed with my performance in the traffic. All in all despite the shaky start I would say that this was my most enjoyable and satisfying lesson so far.

Lesson 7 & 8 Junctions & Roundabouts

Today’s lesson started of well, I could not recall ever felling so comfortable behind the wheel of the car. Everything felt infinitely easier than it had ever done before and it was a very satisfying feeling to have so much control, when only six hours prior to this lesson I had been a complete novice. With Simons wisdom and my determination we had come along way in such a short period of time and I was driving round the Cheltenham roads with confidence and skill, that is not to say I wasn’t making mistakes and it was still very clear that there were a number of creases in my driving ability that still need smoothing out. Not only was this the most comfortable I had felt, despite some rather irritating stalls in some rather inconvenient places, but it was also the lesson in which I had first broken the 30MPH mark and the fastest I had been so far and later on in the lesson I went on to double this landmark speed.
The main focus of the lesson was to be the navigation of roundabouts. We started of with a few simple mini-roundabouts which I navigated without to much difficulty, although I did accidentally drive directly across the middle of one. We then proceeded to pull over in a lay-by and discuss the process of larger roundabouts. When set off I was fairly confident that I could handle the car gracefully around the new obstacles but it soon became obvious that they were a little harder to navigate than their smaller brethren. Nonetheless despite a few hiccups and a very steep learning curve I started to get the hang of them, I would not go as far as saying that I was an expert but I would say I had at least the basic understanding and skill required to navigate them. After a number of larger roundabouts we concluded the lesson and I returned home yet again in one piece.

Lessons 5 & 6 Crossroads & Emergancy Stop

25th January 2009

Lessons 5 & 6 Crossroads & Emergancy Stop

Today's lesson started off unusually on this sunny Sunday morning, by which I mean to say nothing went wrong on my end. Once Simon and I had reached the car I was immediately instructed to step into the driving seat, this was the second and final of the unusual events that were to take place that morning, was Simon starting to show some faith in my driving abilities?
I was fairly confident that Simon could not come up with anything that would drastically challenge my recently acquired driving capabilities, but as usual I was wrong. What was also unsuspected however, was the fact that the hurdle I would fall at would be something I had apparently mastered the lesson before, junctions. It very rapidly became abundantly clear to me that junctions were a completely different kettle of fish when there were other cars on the road with me.
I must admit when I stepped in the car that morning I was a little sleep deprived, being a Sunday morning, and it may have affected my mood as I was becoming increasingly aggravated, and repeating the same junction in that short period of time did not seem to be helping. Simon seemed to notice this deterioration in my mood and we started to move away from the junction and started navigating T-junctions, roundabouts and traffic lights and unsurprisingly my mood started to improve exponentially, but what was surprising however, was the fact that my driving did too.
After having travelled what felt like along way we finally pulled over and discussed what we had just been over and went about smoothing out the creases in my performance. We then started to talk about the process of an emergency stop. In that moment I had felt the happiest I had since stepping in the car three weeks ago, this was plain and simply to do with the fact that all I had to do was slam on the brakes, not even I could do that wrong, or could I? We headed off and on my first attempt I stopped and I had even managed to prevent the car from stalling. After we had done a number of other practice emergency stops I was instructed to head home. I got home relatively safely, apart from someone who obviously enjoys tooting at learners for no reason sounding their horn at me, and parked the car. After a debriefing from Simon we parted ways and I was feeling confident and excited for the next lesson I would have.

Driving lessons 3 & 4 - Juuctions & Hill Startsn- Park Driving School Cheltenham

15th January 2009

Lessons 3 & 4 Junctions Turning Left & Right and Hill Starts

After the success of last week and the sense of achievement I now harboured, as you can imagine, I was eager to step back into the driving seat for this week’s lesson. Unlike last week I was prepared for Simon, he wouldn’t catch me in bed today! As he had requested, I had brought with me the paper part of my driving licence, which I had forgotten in the rush of the week before, and was confident that nothing could go wrong this week. However, as I took a seat in the car Simon pointed out that I had forgotten my folder containing my progress reports, my illusion of preparation was starting to fade.

After I had eventually sorted everything out we headed off and before long I was behind the wheel again. Simon and I had a quick recap on the events last week, mainly junction protocol, and after arranging myself into a safe and comfortable driving position I proceeded to drive round the streets of Cheltenham. I felt very secure and comfortable as Simon instructed me as I approached junctions and various hazards. All was going very well, I had even managed to keep my cool in the presence of other traffic on the road that was until a fellow driver tried to do a rather poorly executed three point turn, which even had Simon amazed as to how this person had past her test. In a strange way this persons poor driving, and Simon’s reaction, filled me with new confidence, as it made it quite clear you don’t have to know how to drive to pass your test!

After manoeuvring onto a main road, navigating a couple of traffic lights and a mini-roundabout I was elated at my progress. Then as Simon asked me to pull over I became aware of, what looked like at the time, the largest hill I had ever seen. I thought perhaps it was the end of the lesson and that Simon didn’t have in mind what I thought he did, but I was wrong. In fact, it was far worse than I had first surmised, not only did he want me to drive up this ‘mountain’ but he also wanted me to park half way up it ! The only thing that in any way made me do what he was asking was the fact that I felt safe in the knowledge that throughout the process I would never be completely out of the control of my driving instructor, and a good thing that was too, as I soon started to move backwards down the hill.

After our eventful lesson Simon took me home and went over what we had covered. He double checked that I felt ok about everything and asked if there was anything I felt particularly unhappy about, apart from almost taking him backwards down a hill into a main road. As I left the car and returned to the safe environment of my house I was extremely pleased with what I had accomplished in the lesson and also aware of what I needed to practice.

Driving lessons 1 & 2 - Controls & Moving off and Stoping- Park Driving School Cheltenham

9th January 2009

Lesson 1 & 2 Controls, Moving off and Stopping:

I was woken up very abruptly this morning by a determined knock on the door, that knock belonged to Simon Phipps, my new driving instructor. Not exactly the start that I had envisaged but confusion in driving lesson times, on my part I might add, resulted in me stepping into the competent hands of Simon completely unwashed and relatively smelly. But in a very professional manner he unflinchingly invited me and my odour into the passenger seat of the car and after a short drive we arrived at the starting point in my driving career.

Slightly nervous and concerned for Simons safety I sat in the driving seat, either through immense bravery or ignorance of my lack of experience he calmly started to explain to me the basics of the car. After going over the fundamental controls, seating positions, mirrors and cockpit drills we were ready to go. I cautiously began the process of starting off and to my astonishment I was driving, but as I started to get excited over this development in my driving career it became abundantly clear to me that I would at some point have to stop, then came the curb. I was terrified that I had in someway, or was about to damage his car, but looking over to Simon I found him very calmly sitting there as he gave me much needed direction and reassurance.

Later on in the lesson after the first few precarious steps, I was getting on at a pace that I was very happy with, I felt comfortable and like I was in safe hands, or should I say feet? (It was quite a relief when I first discovered that Simon had dual control, wise move!) By the time it was the end of the lesson I couldn’t believe that firstly, we were still both alive and secondly, that the two hour lesson had passed so quickly. He drove me home and sorted out all the paper work and I left the car oozing a new found confidence in my driving abilities however, still very aware that I was still at the beginning of what was going to be a long and interesting journey.