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.