Learning to Drive

Yesterday evening, S was watching Peppa Pig for the first time in a while. First of all she told me she wanted to go to the shop and get some glasses, and then she said she wanted us to have a yellow car.

The glasses comment was easily remedied: she got some awesome glasses from nursery last week which we put on. Obviously, I will take her to the optician eventually, but not this week!

The comment about the car though, I didn’t have an answer for. And it came again at bed time, and the next morning.

The truth is, I never felt I needed to drive; I grew up a 20 minute bus ride from town, in the days when buses ran reliably, every twenty minutes – or every ten, if you took the short walk to the market square. When I moved out of home, I moved closer to town, and have lived within walking distance ever since. Right now, we live in the city centre and can literally nip across the road to the shop if we’re in dire need of Smarties.

That said, since having S there have been so many things I’ve wanted to do with her, but have been made impossible by the lack of a car. We can catch a bus to Bournemouth for the beach, but anything we want to bring with us, we have to carry – and waiting for the bus home with an over-tired toddler isn’t the best way to spend time.

The potty training is also an issue; if you have a car, you can keep a potty in the boot for emergencies. If you’re travelling on the bus or the train, you just have to hope there are no accidents on train seats! I’ve been wanting to take S away more, but the train station is such a long walk from our house, we would have to take the buggy – which then limits our options at the other end. Having a car would be handy, even if it was just to drive us to and from the train station for a day out.

The problem is, I’ve never learned to drive. It was always on my list of things to do when I had spare cash – but you never have spare cash when you have a child! Also, there’s the small matter of… you know, the actual car. I don’t know the first thing about buying cars. I don’t know a Toyota from a VW; I recognise my mother’s car by the colour and any daft toy she has dangling from the rear view mirror. I had a quick look at Exchange and Mart – because that’s where my dad always used to look for this sort of thing. They’ve got some nice-looking silver ones on there… I think perhaps I’d better have a word with my sister’s boyfriend; he knows stuff about cars beyond what colour they are and whether they have space in the boot for a potty and a buggy!

Another tip: When you are learning to drive it’s a good idea to use a starter car. As you are
more than likely going to put little scratches or damage the car. Once you’ve gotten practice you can sell the older car to a business like this and upgrade to something new.