K.P. Webster's Blog, page 19

Learning to Drive :: Day Four :: Downtime

Today was much better. I corrected my mistakes to a very large degree. I barely killed any imaginary cyclists and I only found the wrong gear maybe three times in three hours. I felt very happy when today’s session was over.

I do believe I am starting to feel confident about my driving ability. And why not? Have you seen some of these people who already drive? I mean, there are some real dolts out there. No disrespect. And if they can do it, well surely there’s nothing to stop me. Nothing.

This afternoon a couple of my fellow learners went home. One had failed his theory and so was not able to take his practical. The other passed his theory but failed his practical today. It’s very sad when anyone fails, of course, but particularly on a course like this where there is a great sense of camaraderie. First there is the instinctive empathetic sadness one feels at the hands of another human being’s suffering. Then there is the rather more selfish fear of following in their footsteps. You find yourself thinking, if he can fail – he who has been driving for ten years – then I can definitely fail. But that’s foolish thinking. The possibility of failure is a given. But why bother thinking about? What can that achieve? If you must think about the future at all, think about passing.

Anyway, let’s forget about driving for the moment and think instead about Blackpool.

Blackpool!

This afternoon I went for a walk all along the prom, from the south to north and back again, taking photos as I went. It was fun!

Fun!

 

Blackpool is an absolute hoot. In a thoroughly contemptible way, of course. Everywhere you look there are flashing coloured bulbs and garish plastic and tacky painted smiles and cheap meaningless baubles and posters for the most appalling lowest-common-denominator ‘entertainment’. The entire three-mile stretch that I walked today is clogged with the most crass consumerism I’ve seen for some time. It’s like Las Vegas crossed with Last of the Summer Wine.

Of course, I’m certain there is more to Blackpool than seaside tat and mini-roundabouts. I’m certain of it. And it’s almost certainly a very different place in late November than it is in, say, May. Whether it’s any better or not, I suspect, and pray, I’ll never know.

And also, worth pointing out, besides all the awful, tawdry, soul-destroying garbage, it is also genuinely beautiful.

Well, bits of it are.

Anon!

 

Filed under: 400 Words

Learning to Drive :: Day Three :: Patience Is a Virtue

This is the car I’m learning in. It’s a Kia. I like it a lot.

Today I started to get quite irked with myself because I keep doing two things that I feel are holding me back. The first is that I keep veering to the left, into the cycle lane if there is one, or towards the verge or kerb if there isn’t. ‘Another dead cyclist,’ my instructor intones, fairly regularly.

The other is that I keep finding the wrong gear. I’m starting to get really annoyed with myself because of this. Which, of course, is not helpful. Plus at the end of today’s session, the instructor gave me some feedback on how best to avoid it, so I should be able to resolve it.

I’m getting aggravated though and I think I need to calm down a bit. I oughtn’t be so self-critical. It’s fine. It’s early days. These things take time. Patience is a virtue. And so on.

Today we drove to Preston along the dual carriageway and I drove at 50 miles an hour for the first time. Nothing to you seasoned drivers of course. Scarily fast to someone who has a tendency to veer into the side of the road and murder a seemingly endless stream of imaginary cyclists. Then there’s the difficulty of readjusting to 20 and 30 just as soon as you’re starting to get used to 50. Then there are those roundabouts that come at you like card tricks, with lanes disappearing up their own sleeves. Then there’s the sickening hell of parallel parking which makes me realise I’ve got no idea where the car actually starts and finishes. Then there’s a million other things that you have to remember every time you’re behind the wheel. Sometimes it starts to feel a just a tiny bit overwhelming.

Despite my minor reservations, however, I know I’m doing OK. So much so that, even yesterday, as soon as I’d passed my theory, my instructor was happy for my test to be booked. Usually they wait till the Monday of the second week to be sure that beginners will be ready in time.

So my test was booked today. It’ll be next Thursday – a day earlier than planned – at 11.20am.

Every time I think of it, my heart starts beating heavier, like when I’m sober and I’m about to sing in front of someone.

Jesus, I wish I wasn’t such a wuss.

I know I can fucking drive.

Anyone can drive.

Jesus.

Ssssshhhhhhhhhhh….

Patience.

 

Filed under: 400 Words

Learning to Drive :: Day Two :: Driving Is a Piece of Cake (In Theory)

When my breakfast was presented to me this morning, I was informed by the chef that I had a double-yolk in each of my fried eggs. After a moment of awed silence, it was agreed by all who were gathered around the breakfast table that this could only be an omen of the most top rank. How, after such an auspicious Full English, could I possibly fail to pass my driving theory test this morning?

On the drive to the test centre, stuffed full of starch, the palms of my cold November hands became clammy and dreadful, like a pork pie in a skip. In the backseat, being chauffeured by another learner, I stared blankly through the windscreen, clicking hazards in my head.

At the centre, I had to switch off my phone and put it – along with my keys, jacket and any paper-based items in my possession – in a locker. Then I was sent to a cubicle with a computer and some headphones. Then I did the test.

A bit of advice if you’re ever going to sit your driver theory test: learn the theory. Buy the official Theory Test book and read the fucker. I spent about a month on mine, reading every page and doing the exercises twice. Then I did all the tests I could find online and all those on the Highway Code app I bought.

The theory was all I knew I could count on prior to launching myself into this whole learning-to-drive experience, so I was determined to be confident about it.

It may sound like obvious advice, but I’ve been surprised by the fact that not everyone does it.

I was still nervous though, throughout and afterwards, even though I was pretty certain I’d chased it all around the park and spanked it to within an inch of its life.

I passed. In the end – annoyingly perhaps for anyone who fails it – I was really quite aggravated that I only got 49 out of 50 on the multiple choice section. I really wanted 100%, dammit. I got 62/75 on the hazard awareness, which I was happy with.

What made me even happier, however, was getting back in the car this afternoon, because after ten minutes or so, I started to feel much more relaxed about the whole thing.

Doing an intensive course is already starting to feel like a very good idea.

You know why?

Because there is fluidity.

More tomorrow.

 

Filed under: 400 Words

Learning to Drive :: Day One :: Peepin’ and a Creepin’

The breakfast was really good. Two fried eggs, bacon, a sausage, hash browns, baked beans, fried bread and a little tomato. Not at all greasy. Lovely coffee. Faultless toast. Orange juice. I know it really wasn’t, but it actually felt quite healthy, and once I’d polished it off, I felt ready for anything.

Then came the first day’s driving.

How they work it here is there are usually three of you in the car at any one time. There’s the instructor and two learners, who each take alternate hours behind the wheel. My fellow learner – let’s call him Joshua – is at the other end of the driving spectrum to me, inasmuch as he’s already been driving for 12 years, and despite losing his li- … actually I probably shouldn’t say.

Bugger. I kind of wish I was still anonymous. This would all be so much more interesting as a result. And terrifying. You’d never feel safe in an ambulance again.

Never mind, never mind. Let’s plough on anyway, like an out-of-control Toyota Avensis careering towards a busy burger van.

So Joshua drove first, and our instructor – nothing like Eddie Marsan in the above clip thankfully – guided him around the city, asking me questions as we drove. Joshua is just doing a day’s refresher before sitting his practical tomorrow. He’s a good driver, and there were only a handful of sins that would have failed him were he sitting his test today. But of course, it only takes one.

Then we drove to a large car park, and for the first time in very nearly 30 years, I was in control of a four-wheeled motor vehicle. (Semi-control.)

And it was fine. Apart from stalling once, changing into the wrong gear a few times and veering too far to the left quite a few times, I did OK. I drove. In fact, I drove that motherfucker all over town. And towards the end of the day, I was even beginning to relax a little. Christ, it’s a tense business, driving. All those fucking nutcases out there! You lot! You terrify me!

Visions of Blackpool carnage, earlier today. (Actually, a photo I took on a relaxing walk, earlier this evening. Some Pleasure Beach distraction or other.)

At 3pm, we came back to the centre and did a couple of hours theory with a different instructor. This was when I found out that there is another part of the theory test of which I had been hitherto unaware – the Hazard Perception test.

My theory test is tomorrow.

And it’ll be fine.

En-ra-ha.

 

Filed under: 400 Words

Learning to Drive :: Day Zero

I caught the first of three trains from Mansfield Woodhouse just after 2pm and arrived in Blackpool just after 7. It would have been much faster if I’d driven. But of course I can’t drive. Which is why I’m here.

Lessons start tomorrow at 9am, after a full English breakfast at 8. There are ten days of lessons, with the practical test on the afternoon of the tenth day.

Accommodation in the driving school’s own hotel is included in the cost of the course, which for an absolute beginner such as myself, comes to a grand.

So I am in my room, readying myself.

The train journey was remarkable only because of the final stretch, from Manchester to Blackpool South. Once I’d squeezed myself into the packed carriage and politely but slightly guiltily ejected a rather large lady from my seat, which I had cunningly reserved, I found myself facing a middle-aged woman with very bloodshot eyes and a miniature bull terrier in a carry-case on the table between us. The type with the snout that is weirdly elongated, a little like that of a tapir.

Personally, I find it to be a repugnant-looking animal, pretty much on a par with the pug, but I know that some people really go for that kind of thing. The owner of this particular animal, for example. She totally went for it. In a big way.

She had allowed the animal’s head to peek out of its cage, and as well as constantly petting it, and running its admittedly supersoft-seeming ears through her fingers, she also frequently allowed the beast to lap at her own face and mouth with its big floppy wet tongue.

I don’t mind dogs. I prefer cats obviously, because they’re better. But I don’t mind dogs, and I am for the most part looking forward to living with two fine examples of the species when I move house soon. However, I think there is something rather sickening about humans who French-kiss their pets. This woman – who seemed perfectly pleasant in her conversation with fellow passengers – rather sickened me. She looked at her little terrier with what can only be described as desire – her face up close, her lips parted, her pupils massively dilated. Seriously, she was in love – romantic love – with this obnoxious little creature. Either that or she had been smoking marijuana, which might also account for the bloodshot eyes.

Anyway, I’m in Blackpool, and tomorrow morning, I start learning how to drive.

Eep!

 

Filed under: 400 Words

All Growed Up

I almost don’t want to mention this for fear of something going wrong in the next nine days – a little like not talking about a pregnancy in the first three months, but – on the whole – much less serious. However, sod it. I feel the need.

You may remember I mentioned in the last update that I’d met a woman. Well, a couple of weeks ago, we decided to move in together. We set a date for February 2015, as I’d be house-sitting in London till sometime around then. But then we started looking at properties and we found a pretty perfect-looking house that was available to rent almost immediately. So even though we won’t be able to move in there together for another nine weeks, we’ll actually take up tenancy (references permitting) in nine days.

So there you have it. I won’t be living in Chiang Mai after all. I’ll be living in the countryside outside Cambridge, a hop, skip and half-marathon from the city centre in a little village called Great Chishill.

Pronounced, as far as I am aware, like this.

So I won’t be feasting on street food and struggling with tonal inflections. I’ll be going on long walks with soppy dogs and sawing the heads off deer.

(Incidentally, any deer that are skinned, dismembered and eaten – such as the one pictured above – will have been previously killed in traffic incidents. They will then be spared the ignominy of rotting by the side of the road and will be made full and excellent use of in pies, pâtés, ornaments, hats, scarves and haunting photography.)

Another thing I wasn’t expecting that may well will definitely be the case, is that by the time I move house, I will be driving. I’ll be a driver. An excellent driver.

A friend in France told me about a place called The L Factor, based in Blackpool, where they do two-week intensive courses for absolute beginners. So that’s what I’m doing. The course begins on Monday 24th November, and my test is already booked in for Friday 5th December. Plus I get to spend two weeks in Blackpool. I’ve never been to Blackpool, but I imagine every street looks exactly like this…

As you can imagine, I’m excited. Not about Blackpool per se, but about everything else. I feel like finally, I may be about to become a grown-up. Which doesn’t mean I intend to stop being a child – not entirely – but rather that I’m ready – and willing – to start being a lot more responsible.

What this means in turn is that I need to start making enough money to afford the trappings of responsibility (primarily rent, insurance and a car. A car!). So I need to find some work. This is where – potentially – you come in.

As soon as I move, I can start teaching in Cambridge – that won’t be a problem. I also intend to set myself up as a walking tour guide in both English and Italian, but that will take a little longer. I also intend to carry on earning what I can from translations and of course, from writing. But as I won’t be moving in till January, what I’d really like is something to be getting on with in the meantime, over the next couple of months.

I’m asking all my Italian friends if they know anyone who needs anything translating into English, but let’s not forget, people may have English-language needs too. In fact, maybe you have English-language needs. Yes, you. Maybe you need help with content for your website, or with a personal letter to a long-lost relative that you just keep putting off. Or maybe it’s something dreadfully mundane like a business plan, or a vicious complaint letter to a quality pâté manufacturer. Whatever your writing needs, look no further. I’m here to help.

Alternatively, maybe you live in London and you need your dogs walking in December or January, or your garden taming. I’m very good at taming things. Look, here I am hard at work taming a sous-terrace…

Actually, that’s not a bad idea. I bet there are loads of you out there who have overgrown gardens that you can never find the time to put in order. Do you have such a garden? Is it an absolute jungle? Wouldn’t you just love to have someone come and fix it up for you in time for the new year? You would? Then I’m your man.

Or maybe you have some redecorating that you need doing? Or an old shed that needs knocking down and burning? Again, I am very much your man. I can do all that. I have many strings to my bow. In actual fact, my bow is almost entirely made up of strings. So please, if you have anything you need doing, do drop me a line and I’m sure we can come to some arrangement.

(Oh, and if you happen to be Helen Tumbridge and you’ve been brought here by a Google alert, well, you, I know, can definitely use me. Believe me, I can come up with hundreds of those quips, and my rates are unbelievably reasonable. Please … get in touch.)

So there we are.

Wish me luck. Give me work. Leave a comment.

Soppy dogs.

 

X

Filed under: BLOG

Up

Me, wrestling a golden giant, earlier this week.

So I’ve been back in England for a couple of weeks, and my mum’s fresh out of hospital after a completely successful operation to have her guts and bum reconnected. This was the same operation that went wrong and very nearly killed her at the beginning of the year. So obviously, this time round, there is much relief.

And that’s not all. Get this:

* In June I saw two different physiotherapists about my knackered back and with their help, I devised a programme of daily exercises to strengthen my core, open up my joints and get me moving again without debilitating pain. Nothing changed for a while, but I persisted. Eventually – thanks to the programme and three months of hard physical outdoor work in France – most of the pain went away. Then – as if that weren’t enough – one day I found what I thought might have been a tumour between my ribs. Before I had the chance to panic, however, I realised it was actually a wall of muscle in my stomach. So now, not only is my back hugely improved and predominantly painless, but I’m also in better shape than I have ever been. So that’s good.

* In July I met a woman I’d met once before, 16 months earlier. After our first meeting I suspected she was pretty much everything I could ever want from a woman – creative and unconventional, funny and sexy and at least 17% insane – but at that point she was not single. When I met her this time around she was single. Now – to cut a long and really quite beautifully convoluted story short – she isn’t single again, and neither am I.

* In September I received a letter from the Inland Revenue. After four years of ignoring them, they had finally caught up with me. I feared the worst. The letter contained a small list of all my acts of ostensible tax negligence, then a large sum of money that I owed. This was followed by the words: ‘Amount not currently being pursued’. Why? I’ve no idea. Then, dispelling the doubts that I could not help harbour, at the bottom of the letter, in bold, in a box, like a choir of benevolent bouncers, were the words, You have nothing to pay.

So, as you can imagine, I was – and remain – cockahoop.

Now I must tiptoe quietly away before something calamitous occurs….

Filed under: 400 Words

Le Gite Fantastique!

I’m in France. Since last we communed, I spent a few more weeks in Mansfield, caring caring caring – and I do care – then I came back to France, not to sit in the shack counting mice and singing sweetly, but to work alongside Simon and Lucy (formerly Cyrus and Ruby), helping them turn their beautiful farmhouse home into a fantastic, super-rentable gite.

And it’s proving itself an epic summer thus far. I’m in good shape. I kept up with the fitness jag while I was in England and I’ve been working like a wizard since I arrived here. Consequently I’ve lost more than two stone. So that’s good. Less good is the fact that my back is still knackered. But I did see a couple of physiotherapists while I was in England and I have a regimen of exercises that is helping. I also saw doctors and dentists and eye-doctors while I was in England, as I’m finally starting to realise that taking care of myself is not in fact a complete waste of time. It’s the exact opposite. That’s something I have learned. Took me a while, but … I got there.

So I’m looking after myself, and I’m working and I’m playing – we got the electric guitar set up in the Fun & Games Barn yesterday – look…

But the only writing I’m doing is for the site we’ve set up for Le Gite Fantastique! Which means the five books I wanted to write and self-publish by the end of the year have turned to three. And why not? I’m as fickle as I am free.

So, part of my work here is taking care of the online stuff. Thus far a website, a Twitter feed and a Facebook page. Ultimately, the primary concern of the website will of course be the booking of holidays. For now, however, we’re concentrating on establishing the personality of the place. This means lots of blog posts about the people themselves, the stuff that’s happening now and all the stuff that’s happened in the past two years, since they moved in, before one of them even existed.

This one…

So my own life for the moment has become kind of melded to the life of this place, which is so wonderfully hectic that frankly, I need more words.

And they are here. Please pay a visit. Maybe like the Facebook page. I’m not really sure what that means but I know I want it. Weird. A comment would be lovely too. The lack of interaction inherent in a brand new venture is a tough nut to crack. If you’ve a mind to, help me crack it.

I hope you’re enjoying your summer.

X

Filed under: BLOG

Oops

I’m in France. I’m at the shack. I’m writing five books. I’m going to publish them all myself over five weeks. I’m going to become a self-publishing sensation. (Keep hope alive.) But in the meantime, I keep getting distracted. A few days ago, for example, I started tidying at around 11am – organising rather than tidying; the living room, the kitchen, the shed – and suddenly it was 7pm and all I’d had to eat were two slices of toast. So I stopped organising and started cooking.

I took a long time over the meal, reducing the sauce slowly. Meanwhile, I started a fire outside, put on some music and took out a table and chair. I had enough wine left in my box for one single glass, so while the spaghetti was cooking, I poured it and took it to the table. Everything was perfect.

When the food was finally ready, I dished it up and made my way outside. Just as I was leaving the kitchen, however, my fork began to slide off the plate. Foolishly I made an attempt to stop it, which was when this happened.

I heard the wet splash and felt the plate become light before I’d really realised what had happened. ‘Did that really happen?’ I wondered, although only briefly, because the evidence was overwhelming. Then, wishing that someone else had been there to see it, but accepting that there wasn’t, I took a photo.

Then, very calmly, I grabbed most of the spaghetti, plopped it back on the plate, took it through to the kitchen and put it back in the pan. (Thankfully, I’d made enough sauce for a second plate.) Then I set about cleaning up the mess, starting with the wall.

Then I started laughing.

I laughed quite a bit. Not hysterically – not even remotely like a madman; just the right amount.

Then I threw the unsalvageable remains onto the fire, and took the second batch outside in the pan, just to be sure.

While I was eating, I realised that in the past – at pretty much any point in the past – there is every chance that, having done the same thing, I would have flown into something of a rage.

I then realised that – on the whole – I am fairly intensely happy. It’s true that I am growing increasingly tired of solitude, but that’s OK.

Life is good.

I caught the fork by the way.

 

Filed under: 400 Words

Gold

Last weekend I popped down to London to do some secret stuff. The secret stuff finished a little earlier than anticipated and I found myself in Paddington on Saturday afternoon, at a loose end. So, what I decided to do, was walk.

First I found a map in the street. Then I started heading south.

I like walking. I’ve been doing a lot of it over the past couple of months. Usually I walk in and out of Mansfield. Occasionally Nottingham. But this was walking in London. Walking in London is different. It’s better. I don’t want to be all oooooh London, but … it’s just more interesting than most other cities in this country. There’s just a lot more going on.

So as I walked, I looked and I listened and I thought about stuff.

I walked through Hyde Park.

Naturally, for the first summery Saturday of the year, Hyde Park was packed with people. All kinds of people, enjoying the sun, enjoying each other. Friends and families. Lots of couples. Naturally. And naturally, it made me feel a little yearnsome. It has been a while. A very long while since I’ve actually been involved with anyone.

But the yearning isn’t as barbed and bitter as it used to be. I’m sure this is due in part to the fact that my libido is no longer the trapped angry hornet it used to be, but also due to the fact that I’m a little better at being alive these days.

Then I walked through Knightsbridge, and saw the rich people. Great, golden gangs of them.

Immaculate, exotic people, some of them with their kids, streaming out of ridiculous hotels and into ridiculous cars.

Again, there were a few pangs. Not just for the glamorous women with whom I suspect I would have had very little conversation in common, but for the money.

I’d still like to have money. I’m convinced I could do some pretty impeccable things with it.

I believe my pace may have quickened at these thoughts, for I have things to do. I have plans. I need to get a move on.

Then I saw this car:

And I thought, no matter how much money the owner of this car gives to charity, no matter how much joy his money brings to other people, this car is a fucking obscenity.

Then I kept walking, heading south.

…

 

Filed under: Uncategorized