Author: Buck

Dammit!

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Well I’m pissed off. I went for my test today. In practise I actually managed to do the reverse manoeuvre first time, no shunts. I was well made up thinking I had cracked it, my second go I totally ballsed it up, but with shunts made it in. At the test centre I totally lost it. It was going too near the barrier again so I took a shunt, but left it in a really weird position. Started to reverse and ended up in exactly the same place. So I took my final shunt, but then I was everywhere chasing the damned trailer. In the end he stopped me, said ‘you’re not going to get it in from there’ and again I’d failed before I left the test centre.

This time I only accrued four driver (minor) faults, as opposed to the eleven I had last time, but picked up two serious/ fail points. I clipped a kerb whilst trying to squeeze down the left hand lane of a two lane road (stupid, stupid, stupid) and mistook a line of waiting cars for parked, so tried to overtake them all! Incredibly stupid!

So, four minor errors, two stupid mistakes I shouldn’t repeat, but still not got the hang of that reverse.

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Deja vu

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It’s that time again. Test tomorrow. I went for another four hours training today; I spent two hours practising my reverse, still only about 60/40, maybe 70/30. I got it in a quite a few times without him having to stop me, but I also had to have him stop me twice or three times, and had to take three shunts on one go. If you consider all the times he had to stop and correct me, the once I had to stop and start from scratch, and the three shunt fail, it’s probably more like 50/50. I have an hour tomorrow to try again before driving to the test centre.

The other two hours were spent with me driving around without any real need for instruction. I brushed one kerb (not a fail) then pulling into the last street (the one which my training placed is based on!) mounted the pavement (fail).

Bugger.

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Kicking arse!

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I’m back! Back blogging, but more importantly back at Taekwondo.

I missed the grading weeks back, had a week off sulking, then I was working or in pain from a headache or being inconvenienced by marriages. The longer I left it the harder it was to go back. There is my obsessive but transient interest in things, the fact that it is so much easier to say ‘Nah, I can’t be bothered tonight’ than go and sweat and suffer pain, and my worrying. The longer I left it the more nervous I was about returning. I was all uptight thinking they were going to say ‘What are you doing here? You quit’.

Stupid I know, I am paying good money to be put through such trials, but a real concern none the less. I was thinking the night before going ‘This time tomorrow I’ll be going TKD’ and getting stressed out.

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Day off, huzzah!

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Finally got a weekend off. It’s been six weeks since my last proper one. (My last actual one, three weeks ago, I was dying with that cold and had the sinus pain issues. I would have preferred to have been working and well, than off and in that state.)  I had lots of vague plans about what I was going to do, i.e. gardening and generally pottery about having a good time. Not a bleeding bit of it.

I had a few chores to do; shopping, nipping to town to the bank (while I was there I wanted to nip to Wilkinson’s to spend my £10 voucher that I got off Iceland for Xmas on lovely plants), and nip my sisters to drop off a (day late) card for her youngest.

I went to do the shopping at about half past ten. Half past ten, mind you. Not dinner time, not after work on a Friday, not Saturday or Sunday. Half past ten on a week day. It was chocker. Every doddering idiot, coffin dodger, and work-shy chav was in Asda. Why? They were out in force, all determined to stroll around and stop and chat in the middle of the narrowest isles, blocking my  passage (ooer, Mrs.!). Don’t let my attempts to shop interrupt your conversation you bovine, slack-jawed, ignorant, embodiment of the argument for compulsory euthanasia.

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Doctor. Result!

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I finally had had enough and decided, in desperation to see the doctor. I had another shitty headache yesterday and thought enough was enough. Given my track record with doctors (i.e. I crawl in, ask for help, get fobbed off) it was a last ditch thing. I had tried the alternatives; painkillers, doing nothing, and whining like a bitch, to no noticeable avail. So without any real hope of resolution I trotted off to the doc’s this morning. At least I could comfort myself that I had exhausted my options.

Big surprise. All change down the doctors. It looks nicer, more professional. It’s still a pre-fab, but it has a look of solidity and roomy-ness. Previously it was like sitting in a bus shelter with sick people. Anywho, cosmetics aside, when I got to see her (the doctor) she gave me a thorough service. Prodded my head, took my blood pressure, checked ears, nose and throat, and most importantly of all, actually seemed like she had an interest in resolving my issue!

Hoo-bleeding-rah!

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