The Lone Wanderer

Here is your follow up to The Human Toboggan. I know you'll have been holding your breath waiting to hear what happened next.



My sense of direction isn't great. However since meeting and marrying my Husband I have been taught how to map read (and am I am secretly quite proud of this). As a back up we also have a sat nav- which can at times be a bit temperamental. For example if it can get us to take the longer of two routes to get anywhere it will do! I wonder if it has been pre-programmed to make sure that we don't become 100% reliant on the technology and are capable of retaining some basic life skills like swearing and speed map reading.

Now, prior to the development of these particular skills I relied on signs. And believe it or not I got on fine. However every great hero has her nemesis and mine is Perth. I can get there no problem. I can find find Kinoull hill no problem but getting out of Perth is a nightmare. And in this particular case it was going to be a major problem.

I was, if you remember, sitting in a car park with my jeans on the passenger seat. I still had to get out of Perth. So I resigned myself to the fact I still had to get home some how and started the car up. Within 10 minutes I already knew that I had missed a turning. I'll be honest, I couldn't tell you which turning I had missed but I knew I had gone wrong when I hit a culdesac that was looking particularly residential and not at all like the motorway to Edinburgh that I was searching for.

After driving for a good 45 minutes it dawned on me that I had only one option.

Because I didn't know where in Perth I was, a map would be useless and that fact that I lacked the skills to read a map it would have been pointless to dig out the pristine map* that I did in fact own.

I had to ask for directions.

I had to stop someone in the near vicinity and ask for their help.

hmm.

In bare legs, in February. I had to ask for directions.

Now at the time I was a single lady and I can confirm the existence of Murphy's Law. In a very real way. The minute I reached the decision to ask for directions dozens of young, attractive men began to appear on the streets of this residential culdesac. So I drove on hoping that a sign saying Edinburgh would appear.

No road signs for Edinburgh but a little old lady dragging a tartan case on wheels made an appearance like a mirage in a desert. I thought she would be an ideal person to ask for help. I just had to be sure and not alarm her with my semi naked driving style.

I pulled over and rolled the passenger side window down and shouted a friendly "Excuse me"

I thought the best course of action was not to draw attention to the fact I was sitting in a jumper and pants with my wet jeans next to me. I was going to be completely relaxed, like it was perfectly normal to drive around in pants during winter. Her reaction was what I can only describe as strange. She lent into the window to find out what I was excusing myself for.

Then she lent in a bit further. And a bit further still. She very calmly gave me the directions I needed and made no comment what so ever about the absence of trousers of any sort. Maybe she was used to drivers not wearing trousers.

Perhaps there is an undergound driving-in-your-pants thing that is such common place in Perth that she wasn't surprised at my appearance. . .

I reached the motorway no problem and spent the next hour driving along doing my best to be a model motorist. The very last thing I wanted was to get pulled over by the police. Or get over-taken by a heavy goods vehicle, where the driver would be at such a height they could see into my little car.

Despite having the heating on full power my jeans were no drier than they had been when I walked across the car park in Perth. I wont say that I am faster than Usain Bolt but I can move quickly when I need to and I had called from the car to get my sister to keep the front door open. The sprint from the car to the house was the fastest move known to Bonnington.





*My Grampa in his wisdom knew that it would come in handy after I passed my test. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I couldn't read it properly. The shame.