A Random Blog About My Week

Having had a look back at my previous blogs recently, I noticed it has been over a year since I actually blogged about something about my boring life, besides all the driving lesson blogs, which I regret putting here, and I should have created a new blog site for them really, but what's done is done. The subject of this blog will be my past week. The highs and lows of the week more specifically.

Overall, last week was one of the better weeks I have had for some time. It included much more socialising than normal, it included much more spending of money than normal, it included good news more than normal and it included a bit more palaver than normal.

One of the main events of the week was the death of my car, which I had taken great care in naming 'Michelle'. Essentially, my car is an Orange (However, I think of it more as Terracotta) Nissan Micra. My thought process for naming it was that 'Mike' was similar to 'Micra', but due to it being the colour of fake tan, decided the car was female, and so 'Mike' became 'Michelle'. Anyway, Tuesday, Michelle died on a rough housing estate. Despite numerous attempts to get her going, nothing worked and we concluded the problem to be fuel related, seeing as no fuel was actually entering the engine, which I understand to be a fundamental element to move the car. It was time to call the recovery service.

I belong to Green Flag, not out of choice, just because it came free with my car insurance. Remember, other recovery services are available. Anywho, whilst I was sitting by the side of road, being on hold, their music of choice was 'Aretha Franklin - Rescue Me'. Certainly proves that there are a few people left who have a sense of humour. It certainly made me laugh during an otherwise sad event. When I eventually got through, you have to give them so many details to prove who you actually are, that you begin to forget while you phoned up in the first place. Anyway, half hour later, my saviour in the big truck with flashing lights arrived, and concluded the problem to be the lack of fuel entering the engine, which I understand to be a fundamental element to move the car...

The man in the big truck with flashing lights couldn't fix the problem, thus it was time to for the big truck to pull Michelle to a place where she could be saved - my local garage. This meant I got to go home in a big truck with flashing lights. The man was great though, and very talkative and just generally lovely. When Michelle was in a safe place, and it was time for the man in the big truck with flashing lights to go off and save someone else, I gave him a tip of a few pounds. Nothing makes me feel more pompous than giving someone money for doing their job, but I felt in a kind mood.

Michelle ready to be towed away

So, Wednesday came and the dreaded words 'We'll try to look at it today' were uttered from the lips of the Mechanic, who was strangely very dirty for 8am. Essentially, if a Mechanic ever says those words to you, you can almost guarantee that they won't even touch the car that same day. This meant Wednesday, I was house bound with no Michelle. How I missed her.

Thursday came, and still no car and no news. Thursday was also the day most 18 year olds dreaded - results day. I had planned to spend results day driving around, but instead had to resort to asking my Dad for lifts and lots of walking - I had blisters on my feet thanks to Michelle selfishly dying. Anywho, despite the walk to school to get the results being in the rain, it was a generally great day, aided by the fact I was actually happy with my results. In my head, I had already predicted that I would get a C in English, which is exactly what I got. I feared I would get a lower mark, but felt I deserved a higher grade, but was more than happy with my average C grade.

This is how the news regularly represents exam results. I have never seen this actually happen...

In amongst the happiness though, I was still angry, bitter and depressed. Those of you who are followers of my blogs, my Twitter or my life, will be more than aware that I got Chicken Pox this year - during exam season. This meant I missed an important exam, and of course couldn't receive my Photography results this year (or ICT, but I postponed them out of choice, in that I may as well make use of having an extra year at school). Collecting my one result was a lovely reminder of the fact I had another year of school to look forward to. I don't think I will ever forget the time when I got Chicken Pox.

My happiness was aided a little bit more with the news that the garage had actually begun to look at the car and believed the problem to be a wiring fault; nothing too expensive. Oh, and Ice Cream and company helped in making me even happier. Essentially, by the end of Thursday, I was a lot happier than I expected myself to be.

Friday came and I was still happy, but without Michelle and heard no more news. By about Mid-afternoon, I got fed up and phoned up the garage. The news I received made me smile. Michelle was alive and ready to return home! The fault ended up not being the fuel pump or wiring as people predicted, but instead the 'Engine Control Relay'; a little blue plug which acts as a switch in the circuit. A hard thing to diagnose I was told. I was made even happier by the price. Sure, it was still a lot, but less than anyone had predicted. The Mechanic enjoyed the challenging of diagnosing Michelle so much, that he only charged a small price for labour. Pompous Stuart came out again and gave the lovely man a tip (as well as paying the bill obviously), in return for my keys.

The little blue b*****d that tried to kill Michelle

Happy I was. After being without my car for three days, I took Michelle for a little spin around the local roads and then returned home to clean her - with a vacuum cleaner and polish, something I haven't done since the day I passed my driving test, which was over 5 months ago now. By Friday evening, I was very happy. The thing is I've not even touched Michelle since she came back. Why is it you want something really bad when you cannot have it, but as soon as you can have it, don't want it?

Other things have happened in between and since then. My week hasn't just consisted of my car breaking down and getting my one A-level result, which would be boring. Not much else has happened granted, but that is not the point. Other things in my week have made my mood change from happiness to depressed in moments, and vice-versa, but I don't want to talk about that.

So, that was last week. What does this week have install for me? Well, it may include a little bit of pubbing and definitely horse riding - not on the same day though, that is just plain stupid and dangerous.

An Unconventional Driving Test - Ye Second

Wednesday was the day of my second driving test and you (like I am) will be glad to hear that this will be the blog about me and my driving lessons/driving tests. Yes, I did pass my driving test. My theory is that only the best drivers pass second time. It is a relief that I have to no longer sit next to either my driving instructor or my dad whenever I want a drive. Now I can either drive by myself or with one of my friends sitting in the passenger seat. It makes a lovely change!
I could write about my driving lessons prior to my test, but I fear it would get very repetitive and boring, not only for me to type but for you to have to sit and read. The general gist of my 6 driving lessons after failing my first one and before passing my second is that I'd drive around the same old roads for an hour. Occasionally I would do a three point turn or reversing around a corner, maybe do a parallel, possibly reverse into a bay, or if my instructor felt like 'throwing caution to the wind' we would do an emergency stop.
I am not going to say that they were a waste of time, because I do believe that I am a better driver than I was 2 months ago thanks to the lessons, but it is a tad bit tedious paying a guy over £20 a week for the pleasure of driving his car for an hour and ending up in the same place he picked you up. It's like an indecisive person hiring a lazy taxi driver.

The Test
Well things started off well with me having the same instructor as last time - the one that failed me. Now, I liked him last time and I liked him this time still. He was quite a chatty guy who made for good banter. I think that suits me; driving while having a joke with the person next to me. I even told him that I loved him when he told me I passed and I hadn't even been drinking. It is not every day I tell older men that I love them.
I did have 5 minors during my test though. One was for not checking my mirrors before changing speed and another for not looking in my mirrors before indicating. The other three I gained while doing my two manoeuvres. One minor I gained while doing a three point turn as I just tapped the curb. The remaining two I gained within seconds of each other while doing a parallel park. I yet again tapped the curb, so to correct my error I moved forward without doing my blind spot check. Really, I wasn’t that bad though. All that means is that if I am about to do a manoeuvre, then don't walk on the pathment.

The overall driving during my test was pretty good I felt. I achieved the roundabouts well, stopped at the appropriate times, drove at the correct speeds and swerved to miss a majority of the potholes. I think I deserved that pass really, but then with the amount of money I've spent on driving lessons alone (I have worked out it comes to nearly £800) I think the system has received enough of my money. Anyone who thinks driving is a cheap hobby was clearly born before 1950 when driving lessons where only 'five shillings'. It will be cheaper now I've passed; unless the cost of petrol goes up, there is no danger of me spending more on petrol than I did on lessons weekly.
My first day of driving solo was quite fun I thought and it was quite adventurous; I done nearly 20 miles of driving and achieved it much quicker than it would have taken if I walked. There was so much traffic on the way to school, that despite my journey taking me down a dual carriageway, I failed to get to 50MPH before joining the back of a miles worth of traffic. Chris Moyles and his team saw me there safely though, and a journey which would take about 15 minutes with no traffic took over half hour. Then after school, I took a few friends home and yet again I was met with traffic and potholes. I am not an angry person, but I do suffer from slight road rage it has to be said. I don't know why, but something about being in a terracotta car makes me feel ''ard'. The way home was met with less traffic, but bigger potholes and also the traffic lights near my house not working. It is quite fun really.

There are many Facebook groups which share a similar opinion to me about potholes. 'I've Paid My Car Tax, Now Go Fix Some F***cking Potholes' and 'I'm Not Drunk, I've Avoiding Potholes' are both correct. The roads around Canterbury seem to have more the holes than there are craters on the moon, and I'm sure there are many places which are similar across the country, if not worse. Even when they do fix these potholes though, they don't do it properly. My car has enough dents in it already (none of which were caused by me, honest. It was the previous owner, I swear) so I don't want them to be added to.

At some point soon, I will need to do a Pass Plus course so that I will hopefully be able to get some money off of my driving insurance when it comes to renewing it in May. If they think I'm paying £1,800 again, then Churchill have another thing coming. Just because I have tesicles, a car and live in an area renowned for attacks on cars doesn't necessarily mean I'm any more of a liability. Then, while I was on the phone to them to change my insurance so I was classed as a guy with a Full License, they tried to con more money out of me. No, I don't want to increase my annual mileage nor upgrade my breakdown cover so you can have more of my money. That is after I was on hold for ten minutes while they played depressing music to me. Call centres must cancel out phone lines like 'The Samaritans'. Do you think you're too happy and in danger of smiling, then just spend 5 minutes waiting to be put through to an advisor, that should do it.

Anyway, thank-you to people who have already congratulated me, and to the people who haven't, I still love you because this means you have read my entire blog without pressing the giant X button on the top right-hand (or if you are a Mac user, the red bubble on the left-hand) corner of your screen. I wish for a long and safe driving career. Hopefully I've not just jinxed myself so I crash my car next week...

It's Unconventionally Close Now

It's not long before my driving test now; in fact I have my test on the 6th January which is the equivalent of 3 more driving lessons - it's becoming a scary thought considering I can't get much practice in my own car in because of all this blooming snow and ice. Anywho, I've not blogged for a while about my driving lessons, and I have 6 lessons in which to boringly inform you about. I hope I past my test first time because I don't think I could bear the tedium of having to blog about more driving lessons...

Lesson 23 then, and it was what I consider to be a very good driving lesson which I enjoyed. The lesson was mainly through country roads and was of course - an unconventional driving lesson. How many people have a driving lesson where they come across a telegraph pole across the road? My Driving Instructor doing the right thing, phoned the police to inform them while I carried of driving which meant I ended doing 20 minutes driving on my own, which was good. Besides that, I did do a reverse around a corner, into a parking space, a parallel park and also a three point turn.

Lesson 24 wasn't as exciting as the previous lesson. Essentially, it was just a boring hour drive around Canterbury with lots of traffic; in which I done (as you can guess by now) a three point turn, parallel parking, reversing into a parking space and reversing around a corner.
Lesson 25 was the same, driving around boring Canterbury, in what seemed to be a huge circle. I done a three point turn, a parallel park, reversed around a corner and into two parking spaces. The first one took 4 attempts before I done it properly - why I do not know. The second I felt was a much harder space to reverse into and managed to do it quite successfully.

Lesson 26 and it went very well and again enjoyed the lesson. I done the usual three point turn, a parallel park and reversed around a corner. I made no mistakes. However, as is common in my driving lessons, all the brake lighting failed, so 10 minutes of my lesson was at the back of the car replacing the bulbs. It's good experience anyway. This happened a few months ago as well.
Lesson 27 followed in the car's record for being very reliable with me doing the lessons with an almost broken clutch. This meant I had to be very careful with it, and again is a good experience I suppose. I done a three point turn and reversed around a corner - which for some reason I couldn't do properly.

Lesson 28 was in the dark - my first lesson in the dark to be precise... Well, considering that fact, it went very well I thought. I didn't know how to use the car lights, so there may have been the odd time in which I was driving in the pitch black. I now know how to work them however. Despite the fact it was a night time lesson, I still had to do a parallel park which went well. Also, I had to do a three point turn, which ended up being a 5 point turn because I couldn't see and reversed around a corner which also didn't go particularly well because of the darkness. The thing is, in the dark it's hard to see where you're going - would you believe that?

I get on well with my driving instructor, and the reason for this is that we share a similar tendency to have big pointless rants about insignificant things. A man not indicating at a roundabout can result in him moaning for 10 minutes at how dangerous it can be. Also, he seems to have a different word every few weeks to call people. Usually it's child-friendly words such as 'Plank' or 'Twit' but his new word for the past few weeks is 'Pleb', which I think may be a slightly strong word to call someone who forgot to put a blinking light on. Never-the-less, he's alright.

The next blog about my driving I expect will be telling you about my remaining three lessons and then how my test went; whether I passed or failed. I am actually quite confident about it. The only things which I think will let me down are my observation and reversing into a parking bay. Those are the two things which I have the biggest problem with. Hopefully it won't affect me and I'll pass first time; purely because I can't afford to take my test again...

And On That Bombshell...

Some say, that Insurance is so expensive that people are starting to park their cars in their front rooms, and saying it's parked in a garage; others say that if you added the Stig to your policy, you'd get free breakdown cover - All I know, is that Insurance is bloody expensive, especially for the first time driver.

As I'm typing this, Churchill are preparing to drain my account of nearly £1,800 for my car insurance, on a 1 litre Nissan Mirca, just because I'm a male teen. If you've ever watched 'Police, Camera, Action' or 'Traffic Cops', the voice over person will always says about reckless male teen drivers, which stereotypes every teenage boy with a car as someone who's going to drive over fields to avoid the police, race around a car park, or go 31 MPH in a 30MPH zone. I'm not one of these kind of teenagers who testosterone is so high I punch my best friend in the face because he touched my hair or want to prove myself as a man so much that I've slept with every girl I've ever looked at (mainly that's more to do with the fact I'm not as 'aesthetically pleasing' as most, but that's not the point I was trying to make). I'm not exactly a stereotypical teenage boy.

I am now 17 in 9 days, which also is the day I have my first driving lesson booked, so as you can tell, I'm quite eager to start driving considering I've got a car and insured it already. But my car only cost me £800, so the insurance is nearly a thousand pound more, which is quite ridiculous. After a year’s driving, assuming you haven't crashed your car or been convicted, the insurance is suppose to drop dramatically, so you're only paying this ridiculous price once. But bloody hell, that's nearly enough to make me catch the bus every day, so I leaved a 'greener' footprint behind me.

There are lots of blogs on the Internet, written by people who are also 17/18 and have brought car insurance, but the one thing I've noticed, is that no two people are the same. Just because Bob in Swansea got cheap car insurance with 'Auto Direct', doesn't mean I will in Canterbury, because your postcode is the most important bit. Me personally, I found both Churchill and Direct Line to be the cheapest, but Churchill was the best value for money. The only way you can find cheap car insurance isn't to ask people who was the cheapest insurer for them, you have to spend hours, maybe even days going through every insurance company and getting quotes on the Internet and on the phone. Also, I've found it's a great way to learn your registration number, as I now know mine off by heart because of the amount of times I've typed it.

I have some pieces of advice to anyone considering buying a car, learning to drive and insuring the car. The first one is to make sure you don't buy your favourite car. Chances are your favourite car is too big. For example, my favourite cars would be the Ford Focus or Fiat Punto, but the engine size on both is too big for someone who is learning to drive/just passed their test, because there is no way (unless you were born of a women who has slept with Richard Branson to Max Mosley) that you would be able to afford the car or the insurance. I own an orange Nissan Micra for God sake - as you can probably guess, it wasn't exactly my first choice. But no-one’s forcing me to keep forever, in fact in two years time it will be 10 years old, so the government will tell me that I could trade it in and get £2,000 off a brand new car. There are lots of problems with that new Government scheme, but that's a blog for another day.

Another piece of advice is to make sure you put someone else on your insurance policy. You Father or Mother favourably, because it will just make learning to drive a lot more simple and give more flexibility to when you can learn to drive. I would strongly advise though that you learn to drive with an instructor and not your Father, because going on how well my friends have done, the ones who have gone with an instructor have passed quicker, and haven't fallen out with their Father.

I suppose you could call this my advice blog to anyone who is about to start driving and in the process of buying a car. My advice would be to make sure you check every insurance company - including Churchill - OO YESH!
Just think that if I can dispense this amount of information before I'm 17, I'm either well informed - or wrong...

So, on that bombshell, it's time to end.Toodles m'dearys
xXXx

And by the way, normal service with cynical blogs will return shortly.