Driving - The Ropes

Saturday mornings aren't always the best time of the week, especially if like me, you have to up earlier than usual. Saturday was invented to have a lie in after the stress of all the work done during the week. Not me however, I had to be up early for my first driving lesson, so there was a reason to be up at 8 rather than the usual "later." I did spend a while preparing myself by watching that old BBC programme Stars in Fast Cars on Dave, where the celebs were driving a Mini onto a truck in a similar vain to that of The Italian Job. This didn't really seem to work...albeit, there was nothing on that early in the morning. It had to do.
Then, whilst pacing I caught a glimpse of a car parked in the mouth of our drive. A silver car. A 1.4 litre mark V Ford Fiesta (diesel). A car with L plates. This was my cue to turn the TV off and "go do this thang."
I got in the car, introduced myself to my instructor, Alan, and he went through what I was going to be doing. He explained that this was just going to be a simple lesson to learn the basics of driving and just getting a feel of how the car responds; how the clutch, brake and accelerator feels; steering and all that. He took me to an empty road behind an industrial estate where we swapped controls. It was my turn.
After telling me how to do the basic operations, I had a go. Clutch down, shift into first, release the clutch a little and squeeze the accelerator and I was away with a bit of a judder. The road I followed had it all. A corner, a straight, a slight incline and a cyclist. So far, so good. That was until I got told to merge with traffic on a main road. Wait, what? A main road on my first lesson, surely this cannot be? I've heard stories from friends that first lessons start off on straight roads where learners get to know how to use the 3 pedals and the gear stick maybe with a bit of steering in there too. They would then get to the end of the road, the instructor would swap seats to turn the car around and swap a second time and do the same in the opposite direction. I was going into traffic where real people with very real cars do real driving. Yes, I am doing real driving but this is 2 tonnes of metal in the hands of someone who has only been on Go Karts and mowers. I put it to the back of my mind, indicated, edged up to the line and put on the handbrake to wait for the real traffic to clear. Once it was clear, I continued as Alan told me to. I carried on down the road and turned back into the industrial estate and pulled up to the curb where I started for him to tell me what I had just done. In a nut shell - driven! Ecstacy was the main thought but as soon as we stopped, I got told to do the same thing again. Again remembering what I did, I pulled out and drove back up to that main road junction. Again, I pulled out of the junction. By now I was jokingly thinking "if the test just requires me to use 3 gears, the indicator and only turn left, I'm going to pass with flying colours. I'm getting the hang of this." However Alan did it, he must have heard me because he told me to turn right into a residential area. Wait, what? A built up residential area? On my first lesson after only ever going left, you want me to go were people actually live? And so I did I was told. I was driving through where people live! I was ecstatic. I may seem a bit over-reactive but I've been waiting to do this for quite a while. I went through housing estates all and all that, observed for things like buses, people, other road users and what have you and the most bizarre thing was that it felt very natural. Maybe natural is the wrong word. I felt very at ease, I wasn't too calm but I wasn't too nervous to be sitting behind the wheel. I've normally sat in the passenger seat and it just felt very unreal. Wierd!
So after covering the basics around a rural area, I was next instructed to go back to the main road I started at, only this time to carry on to get a feel of travelling at a higher speed. Wait, what? Seriously...another gear? Yupp, all the way up to 4th and 40mph. With me in controll, getting to know lanes and stopping at traffic lights and being aware of lorries and speed cameras. And so we had done a full loop, all that was left was to go up and down a few roads like before and drive home.
What an experience though. This was great. Yes, there was a few hairy moments when missing gears and misbalancing the clutch and looking at the gear stick to see where 3rd was, but for a first lesson, I impressed even myself. It's going to take a while to get familiar with the Fiesta and the sensitivity of a car but hopefully that will come to me in time. It'll become second nature, like riding a bike. The less you think about, the least likely you're going to make a mistake (or crash). I'm thinking of giving the test car a nickname. Something aggressive like The Diesel Weasle...erm, no. How abouts something like The Silver Surfer? Nope? Silverfish? The Silver Fox? Or something metaphorical...like the Silver Lining? Wow, that's cool, let's go with that (I'm saving "The Rocknroller" for my car, whatever that may be).
Lesson one...DONE!