toot toot

I’m drinking my G&T through a straw.

My jaw is locked. It has been clenched for so long today that I think the muscles must have gone into spasm.

Firstborn is driving me to drink. Literally.

She’s learning to drive and every day this week I have laid my life on the line and accompanied her on a little jaunt to various outlying towns.

Tuesday we did Salisbury, Waitrose’s car park and then the Green Dragon.

Wednesday we did Devizes, Morrisons’ car park and the Drummer Boy.

Thursday we did Marlborough (what a stuck up town that is), another Waitrose, and the Rose and Crown.

Today we did Chichester and the Cathedral, praying is another thing I’m trying.

Not only do I have lockjaw, but I can no longer speak without gibbering (should I ever be able to speak again that is). I have a frozen left shoulder from clinging desperately to the door handle and cricked neck from flinching as we pass cars, walls, hedges so closely that the gap would have to be measured in microns.

She has NO FEAR. I now have enough for England.

I only open my eyes now when forced to give an opinion on which way to get to the nearest pub.

This is trickier than you may think because neither of us can tell left from right, clockwise from anti, or east from west. So it requires wild gesticulating, normally from the footwell.

It is a far, far braver thing I do than I have ever done . . .