Poor Lucy.
Not only did she not pass, she failed before she even got out of the driving centre car park.
The examiner got into the car with her and told her to reverse into a parking space on the other side of the car park.
She was in such a ghastly state of nervous anticipation that she could barely see the space, never mind reverse into it. In the end she finished up at a peculiar angle, largely unrelated to the space, and knew, with a horrible sense of doom, that she had messed it up completely.
After that, because she knew she had already failed, she calmed down and the rest of the test went fairly smoothly.
Once the test was over, she and Mark reversed into the space. She did it perfectly, on the first attempt, without any difficulty at all, but it was too late then to shout the examiner back and get him to have a look.
I did not know any of this at the time I was at home having my own agony of nerves on her behalf.
I had saved myself all sorts of jobs to be done to distract myself from having paroxysms of worry, like hanging up washing and going to the bank, and it was a good job that there were so many of them, because every time I looked at the clock it had not moved at all. Even going to the bank, which normally takes ages and involves a great deal of standing at the counter, gassing and holding up the rest of the queue, was over in about four seconds, and when I came out it still seemed to be the same time as it had been when I went in.
We had a cup of tea and a post mortem when they came home, and Mark said that really he thought she was probably not quite ready, and just needed a bit more practice.
We booked her another driving test in two weeks, and she emailed the police to beg them to wait.
They have not emailed back yet. We don’t know if they will let her carry on with her application.
The next driving test is going to happen when she should be at school, but we are all in agreement that it can’t wait any longer. The longer it goes on, the less likely the police are to let her have an interview and join this year. We have got everything crossed.
We might be pushing it a bit, but it is worth a try.
In the end I took Oliver back to school, and Mark and Lucy went off in her car so that Lucy could drive herself back to school.
Oliver and I had a happy sort of journey. He thinks that he might like to be a psychiatrist, or possibly a forensic psychologist when he grows up. He is interested in why people do things, so maybe he will.
That will pay well enough for him to look after me when am a hundred.
Oliver bounded off into school to find his friends, and I set off for home. I was almost back when Mark and Lucy rang me. They had finished off the day by having her very first accident.
Fortunately this wasn’t her fault and no damage was done. Mark was actually very pleased indeed by the speed with which she managed her emergency stop. Somebody had pulled out without looking on to a roundabout, and she had stopped just in time. The cars touched but it turned out that no harm had come to either of them.
She has had a very exciting day. She rang me when she got back to school and thought that she might go straight to bed even though it was not quite eight o’ clock.
It is a tiring business, this being a grown-up.
I have got every sympathy.
The picture is Number Two Daughter. She arrived in Japan yesterday and celebrated her start of the ski season by landing upside down in a snowdrift.
1 Comment
Sympathies to Lucy: I didn’t pass a driving test until I was well over 40, at the 6th attempt. And I still avoid reversing into a parking space if I possibly can ( ie I never do it!) She’ll be fine!