Today

The day started like this:

After months of swimming in brown sludge, the fish nearly die of shock as they realise they can finally see out of the tank. And yes, that fish really is floating upside down. See, even the fish in our house are weird.


Then this...Dd cleans the killer mould off her window with someone's (not mine!) toothbrush:

Then this...mother buys intellectual books at library to put on shelf so visitors think we do stuff other than watch repeats of The Simpsons all day:

Then this...Ds1 demonstrates his unnerving interest in weaponry:

And war:

Then this...Ds2 sees how long it takes before mother regrets buying him a lethal form of transport for Christmas:

Then this...Dd torments budgies at local park:

And then this...van breaks down and I'm left with these:

And this reading material (which is no help whatsoever):

And this: A very short introduction to Literary theory. Trust me. It's not short enough, even when read by torchlight in a broken down van.

WVW part 2

Well White Van Woman spent half an hour driving the truck round the football stadium carpark on Sunday afternoon, trying to avoid the huge Pakistani wagon parked on my route (you know, the sort, look like giant campervans dressed up with ten tons of harrods Christmas decorations - except that Christmas decorations would be totally inappropriate for a muslim van, but you know what I mean).



What I mean is something like this, but with more tinsel:



(which looks remarkably like the one that nearly run us off the Karakorum Highway into a million foot deep ravine...but that's a whole other story)

So I went round and round and round the carpark. I found first gear. Found second gear. Managed to start. Managed to stop. Took almost a minute to find reverse until we realised you had to push the gear stick down to get it to move into R. So I reversed into a space. In an empty carpark. Well empty except some other poor mug who was learning to drive: 'If you think that's difficult,luv, you should try learning to drive in this lorry' (see, I'm even starting to get the lingo for being a genuine WVW). 'Shall we go on the road now?' Says dh, 'Absolutely not' says I.

(I think it could do with some tinsel, don't you?)

Well eventually I did venture out into the real tarmac, lurched my way round a few roundabouts going 'Arrrgghhh! Gotta change gear gotta change gear! Er where's the clutch? What gear am I in? Ooh that doesn't sound good.' but at least I didn't stall the van.

No I saved the stalling for today. My first day driving the van on my own. Ok, let's start at the beginning of today. I woke up feeling like ***** having spent all Sunday night chucking up (have I finally got the HESFES bug or did I just eat dodgy pizza?) and all Monday sprawled in bed like a dead haddock.

I was supposed to drive the van this morning (kids have workshops, I needed to pick up other kids, playdates etc). Got in, couldn't reach the pedals. Well I could reach the pedals but only if my knees were on top of the dashboard. Gave up. Dh drove.

Did the playdate/workshop run, did tescos, found out how to lower the seat so that I could finally reach the clutch (kinda handy) and then dropped dh off at work. Lurched my way back towards home. Didn't get above 3rd gear. Didn't make it much about 20 mph (sorry all you cars that were trailing behind me). Didn't dare overtake the millions of cyclists that come to this fair city to risk their life on two wheels (with big bertha I was having enough difficulty missing the curb, let alone death-wish cyclists).

I rolled back at the lights. Twice. Stupid thing was, having seen me roll back once, the car behind me pulled in even closer to my boot. 'Er mate, you don't wanna be doing that, haven't you seen how far this can go backwards without me being in reverse?'

Lurched forwards (not wanting to roll back I had a good old rev on)managed to get through the lights, took the corner in 1st, or possibly 3rd gear, I'm not sure I can tell the difference and then raced on home, only to stall as I pulled across in front of my house. Twice. I was just thankful that the next door neighbour who was getting into the car right in front of me happens to be blind (she was a passenger, not driving, you understand, but there is only so much neighbourly humiliation one new driver can tolerate in a day). Eventually on the third attempt I found a gear that would let me get as far as my hedge and I stopped.

Now all we have to do is work out how to lock and unlock the doors/boot. It's like 2 clicks for this, one key turn and a click for that, unclick for something else. Oh sod it. Everyone climb over the front seat into the back.

I want my automatic smoke-powered hippo back.

WVW (White Van Woman)

Tomorrow we go to pick up this:

It is fair to say that this is the most I have ever spent on Ebay. I mean scary money. Money that when it was counted out at the bank I thought...hmm...that's the most money I have ever seen in my life...I'm sure I could buy nicer things with that money than a car...Why don't I just do a runner now? And then dh very sensibly put it in an envelope and hid it out of my view.

But, we need something for our month's trip round Scotland and car+trailer just wasn't going to do it. Have you tried packing a small trailer with camping gear and belongings for 5 people who think minimalist is leaving the kitchen sink at home, but taking the bath instead? Trust me, it don't fit.

So all is fine and dandy. We have a van. It has 6 seats. 6 nice big comfortable seats (that's 5 for us and one for the spaniel that thinks it's one of us).

Only one problem. It's a manual. I haven't driven a geared car since I passed my driving test 6 years ago. And I passed my test after only 26 or so lessons. So that's 26 x 2 hours. Which, for the mathematical among you is 52 hours in a geared car. So we're not talking experienced here. I've had more hot dinners than that.

Dh and well meaning friends have been telling 'oh you'll be fine' and 'it'll come back to you'. But I'm not so sure. I am a person who learns to the test. I can pass pretty much ANY exam (including a driving test) and then promptly forget everything I learned. It is nature's way of getting me through life without cluttering up my brain with useless information.

And let's be honest, all information is useless until you need it. Keeping information in your head is a bit like keeping all the loo roll inners for a lifetime on the offchance that you'll one day be required to create a 'sculpture of how many loo rolls a family uses in a life time' for the Tate Modern. I mean, unless you're Tracy Emin then what's the point? Seeing as the council doesn't call round once a fortnight to collect and recycle your unwanted information (unlike loo roll inners), it is best disposed of. Quickly. And if you need it again, surely you can use Google. Except I'm not sure if that works for driving a car.

So, having driven what can only be described as a hippo-shaped-smoke-propelled-people-carrying-go-kart for the past 6 years I don't remember anything about gear changes. Or using the clutch. Or hill starts. Or starting. (and I forgot about parallel parking about week 2 after my test). I know what brakes are for and I can (or can on my current car) open the bonnet and go 'tut tut' (though I can never get the stick thing to stick up long enough to hold the bonnet up so I have to stand there holding it with my hand). I can use the squirty thingy for the windscreen and the flippy flappy things that move the water around. This is the extent of my car knowledge.

But I do remember that I was very good at accidently doing block gear changes from 1st to 5th and back again. My driving instructor thought it was rather novel. Sometimes he turned quite white and went very quiet.

And I do remember the nightmare of hurtling down the slip road onto the ring road (when I say 'hurtle' I mean anything over 20mph - whoah! I can't go any faster or I'll have to change gear!) saying over and over 'please don't let there be a car...please don't let there be a car...please don't let there be a car...oh christ! There's a car!' and then screeching to a halt at the end of the slip road while the other car hurtled (i.e. proper hurtled) past. Those weekly driving lessons were almost enough for me to become religious. But no. I turned to drink instead (not while driving of course) to ease the fear of the road.

And then I passed. Because I can pass exams. It's what I do best. Don't let anyone tell you that exams indicate evidence of knowledge in any form. Having 5 A levels, 9 o levels, an honours degree and a driving licence, I am living proof that exams are a complete pile of pants. I am able to drive a geared car in the same way as I am able to make use of differential equations or recite the facts about the storming of the Bastille (whatever that was)from my learned years at school.

Anyway, problem number two with this van. It has no rear windscreen, only solid doors.

Which is kinda quirky because it means that

a) you can't see what you're about to hit when reversing

b) you can't even see what you just hit when you reversed into it and

c) because of b there's a very strong chance that you'll run over whatever unfortunate item you hit because you'll need to turn the van around to look at what you just hit.

I'd say that's a hit-hit situation. It's safe to say that I don't plan to do any reversing. At all. Ever.

So, all you sympathetic readers, please spare a thought for me tomorrow. There I'll be bunny-hopping and crunching my way down our road, letting the whole world know that White Van Woman has arrived.