Day Ten of Driving Class and --

BLOGS ARE BACK!! Phew. That was nasty while it lasted, but many blessings upon the heads of those who established alternative routes to our little acre of the web, here in Blogistan/Bloganahalli/Blogipur/Bloganam. And so quickly too! Now that I think about it, I was barely inconvenienced -- Friday to Sunday, that was it, I think. On Monday pkblogs had swung into place, followed swiftly by others. There be angels amongst us! Thanks be to them.

And now we return to our regular broadcasts re Learning To Relax At The Wheel Of A Weapon of Minor Destruction. Today was the tenth day of this epic journey from crawling pedestrian to superhuman internalcombustionenginewallah and friends: it's not happened yet. The transformation, I mean. I continue to be a crawler except that I just happen to be sitting in the driver's seat of an infernal machine for 20 minutes in the morning. I may even be regressing, because I feel less and less competent with every passing day.

Oh I have my brief spams of competence! I mean, I am an EXCELLENT buckler of seatbelts and I've really got the art of ... err ... igniting the engine, shall we say, down pat. I can do it with skill and grace. I can release the hand-brake and I can push the gear lever into Position Uno! Yep. I can do all those things. Then Mr Moccha tells me to ease my left foot off the clutch -- to which it is of course welded -- and then the sorrow begins.

We start to move and all the ghouls of the motorway leap out of my dreaming subconscious to dance upon the dashboard. No-one else can see them but THERE THEY ARE -- a conga-line of tiny dancing terrors, singing out in chorus, straight to my brain, a song which goes a bit like this: "Brush them, crush them/ Turn them into motor kill! You have the power/To turn off their liiiiiights!" That's the theme, you see: the thing that beads my brow isn't my personal death, but the many bloody encounters that I could cause if I just forgot to look in my rear-view mirror or lost control of my right foot.

I continue to feel mute with envy at the ease with which all the other drivers on the road seem to just sail along, completely unaware (or so it seems) that they could be mowing down families of innocents at every zebra/giraffe/buffalo crossing. Whereas I feel the lives of DOZENS of people pass before my eyes, as I pass them on the road, my shoulders hunched, my eyes averted, trying desperately not to feel guilty for the crimes that I have yet to commit through a moment's inattention.

Ay me.

It is hard to be a driver.