I am sorry to tell you that Lucy failed her driving test this morning for the fourth time.
I have booked her another, bringing our total driving test expenditure to date up to £350, or thereabouts. This does not include the driving lessons, the car purchase, the MOT, the insurance and the fuel, the bill for which easily clocks up another couple of thousand pounds on the top.
I am feeling despondent.
Mark said that she is perfectly capable, and was driving brilliantly well until they approached the test centre, at which point she dissolved into an agony of panic and forgot what the clutch was for.
To make things worse, she failed for messing up at exactly the same roundabout as she failed on last time. Well, not last time but the time before.
I am In Despair.
We had to get up early. The test was booked for ten past eight in the next county, because the Kendal test centre did not have any vacancies. We got up at half past five, shortly after we had gone to bed, and discovered a frozen dawn.
Mark had to turn the car engine on for nearly a quarter of an hour to melt the windscreen before they set off, and I swathed myself in a thick coat, and woollen gloves and scarf to take the dogs around the Library Gardens. I took the picture whilst I was doing this. It is a winter sunrise in the Lake District.
When I got back I was so anxious that I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I washed dishes and hung up laundry, glad of anything manual to occupy me, and indeed the minutes ticked along agonisingly slowly until eventually Mark rang, and I could hear from the gloom in his voice that the Dreadful Driving Test Ordeal is not to be over yet.
She has got, I think, one more chance, possibly two, because the police have said that she must have passed before they will offer her a place. Her next test is two days before her police interview, which will make for a horrible week. All the same, she might yet have a bit longer to get on the road, because I think that even if she gets through the interview, she will still have a round of fitness tests to do. Part of this, we have discovered, is the dreaded Bleep Test, with which, of course, you are already excruciatingly familiar.
When they got back Mark and I had a sleep, because of having missed that part of last night, and then when we got up we had a Motivational Talk with her.
In essence this boiled down to me telling her to get her act together. I have no idea if this motivated her or not.
I don’t think I really know how to motivate somebody. If you can become motivated by a tired parent telling you that driving tests are bloody expensive and if you don’t try harder you can start paying for them yourself, maybe she will be all fired up and excited now.
Mark, who plays the role of Nice Policeman, drove with her back to school, and rang up when he had dropped her off to tell me that she had seemed thoughtful all the way down, and that she drove perfectly well and competently, just like a real driver.
I resisted the temptation to growl.
I couldn’t even go to the gym, because one of us has to be at work, if for no other reason than that we have got to find another sixty five pounds for the next driving test. Mark wasn’t here, so I sat on the taxi rank and tried to feel positive about life.
So far I haven’t succeeded.
