Lost in Translation

I had my first driving lesson this morning. It was not as simple as I thought it would be.

Being in a car is not what I had expected. It was almost claustrophobic, and there was definitely a sense of being in a large machine capable of taking you wherever it wanted if you missed a pedal or didn't operate the controls properly.

I tried my best to translate what I know from riding a bike to the car, but it wasn't quite as simple as that. There is a lot more travel in, for example, the clutch, and finding the right point for all the damned pedals was enough to concentrate on. Thankfully, my instructor was quite patient.

Once I was moving, everything was fine. It was the starting and the stopping and the slowing down that caught me out. On a bike, everything is second nature and I don't have to give a moment's thought to changing gear or taking a corner because I can do it all without thinking.

I have another lesson tomorrow. I'm pleased with the little progress I made today, and I think that sleeping on it will help, as it always does.