M is for Manoeuvres

M is for Manoeuvres

I can't believe how easy it feels at the moment to find blog topics that correlate to the letter for that day. As many of you know, I am on the journey of learning to drive a manual car. I took a break for a couple of months from September to December last year but since January, I have dedicated time once a week to have a driving lesson. Usually, I have my driving lessons after work at around 5:30 and if you know anything about driving at that time in the winter, you know that it is busy, people are impatient and it is impossibly dark.

My driving instructor will always say "take the next right" and I would struggle to see where that right is because it is so dark. It is good because it is preparing me for the times that I will be driving when I pass but it is harder to learn to drive in the dark than if I had done in the summer.
Today, because I am on half term, I could have a day lesson, which was so nice. There were less people on the road, I could see where I was going and I could practise my manoeuvres. 

I changed instructor just as I was about to learn a new manoeuvre back in July and then after that, I went with a different instructor that was rubbish and then I took a break when I went back to work because I couldn't keep up all the things I had to do -so something had to give. It meant that I had only learned one manoeuvre when I went with my new instructor. Learning manoeuvres is all about the skill and you can't learn it and perfect it in the dark.

Last couple of weeks, I have been practising reverse parallel park and today I got a chance to try it in the light where I could actually see where I was going. It wasn't perfect but I now know what I have to do and hopefully after I've learned these last 2 manoeuvres, I will be able to book my test.
Fingers crossed!