Diary

Today’s lesson was very distinctly split into two, Kev allowed me to drive off from work in Hove much to the amusement of the caretakers who didn’t know that I couldn’t drive. From there Kev took me through the area between the Old Shoreham Road (A270) and the coast road (A259) drilling the MSM-PSL junction procedure I had been taught previously. I have been having trouble linking up the stopping at junctions and starting off again, basically I spent too long at a junction that in some cases I shouldn’t have to stop at....

My tenth hour of driving lessons is over, and I am pleased with my progress. It takes a surprising amount out of you driving around, it is possible that because I am quite tense while driving I am making it worse for myself, I am relaxing more. My steering has improved and I am more or less getting everything done. That is not to say that I am not making mistakes - I am making a lot of mistakes - but that is okay mistakes are part of the process....

Spent some more time driving round Woodingdean, Kev went through who has priority in which situations. For example if an obstruction is on your side of the road then the oncoming traffic has priority, the situation can obviously be reversed if the obstruction is on the other side of the road the you have priority. I have been drawing out some of the diagrams from Kev’s folder of pictures, to save anyone else the trouble I have included the source files here for anyone to play with all licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3....

Peacehaven saw a much anticipated thunderstorm last night, I say much antcipated as it has felt very close and muggy all day. It was actually the most impressive storm I have seen whilst living on the south coast, for some reason we don’t get very many over the land on the coast. It started off with just flashes of lightning and claps of thunder moving closer and closer, then came the rain, when I say rain I mean a torrent of water coming from the sky so much so that gutters and drains were overwhelmed making it all the more impressive....

Third driving lesson went really well, Kev taught me about hill starts specifically if you are going up the hill I need a little more gas than and keep the clutch just above the biting point when on the flat. When going down the hill the clutch can be fully depressed and thus the accelerator isn’t needed, you can basically just roll down the hill - must remember to bringing the clutch up once I am moving as engine braking is actually quite substantial....

So today went well, I am starting the cement the moving off procedure in my head now and I got a bit more comfortable breaking (which is always good when moving at anything above stopped). I edited the previous post with corrections from the previous day. Most notably I forgot about checking the position of the mirrors before putting my seat belt on and the hand brake should be the second thing to check after getting in the car....

I had my first driving lesson today with Kevin Tant, started off a little nervous however I got more relaxed as the lesson continued. I am going to try and write down what I learnt here to help me remember for the next lesson - please do not take this as official or instructional (in fact it may well be TOTALLY WRONG!) if you are learning to drive there are lots of excellent resources on Amazon and I honestly can’t stress how important it has to have an Approved Driving Instructor....

Myself and my wife visited Center Parcs in Longleat Forest at the end of July 2008 for a mid-week break. I thought that I would do a quick write up to help refresh my memory in the future and maybe answer a couple of questions that other people may have. I could give a blow-by-blow account of everything that happened on the day, but I think that could be a little tiresome so essentially what I am going to do is give a quick overview of the break (Monday - Friday) and then go into a little more detail on the parts of the break that stood out for me....

Catherine and I went to Center Parcs in the week just gone, having not been for a number of years we looked through the “Guest Information” pack which contained a couple of rather interestingly worded paragraphs. I am facinated to know what events in the past have prompted Center Parcs UK to add this in the guest information. I think perhaps it would be good to note that there was not fireplace in our accommodation, so does this mean that if we bought a slow burning log we could burn it in the middle of the room?...

I have had my Provisional driving licence for some time now, however I have done little or nothing about it since the idea of driving doesn’t exactly fill me with joy. I don’t know why that is but never the less I don’t particularly want to spend the time and money on learning to drive. That said, it would make sense now Catherine and I are living in Peacehaven to be able to drive, it would also open up more job opportunities for me as I would be able to travel further than the bus can carry me, as well as being able to drive company cars and the such....