Forget 'Super Sunday', today is 'Wonderful Wednesday'. No less than FIVE pupils taking their test today - all of them first attempts. So, fingers crossed for Sam, Katie, Connie, Andy and Catriona. Here is how the day's thrilling events unfold:
5.33am: Although I set my alarm for 5.30am, I woke around 4.30am and decided it was a bit risky trying to get back to sleep for another hour; I might not wake up. Usually our three dogs leap from their bed, tails wagging gleefully, when I come downstairs in the morning, but today I swear they looked at the clock before looking up at me with a ‘What? Go back to bed and leave us alone’ look. Even Jilly - who lives in eternal hope that someone will throw her a crumb - couldn't be bothered to get out of bed.
10.52am: I am sitting on the ground in an Ullapool car park, with my paperwork beneath me for comfort; there is no nice, cosy waiting-room at Ullapool Test Centre. Just a car park owned by a pottery shop. Sam has just gone out on his test after a reassuring lesson (not that that means anything). People are giving me strange looks as they pull into the car park, but I am more concerned about the fact that I have left my mobile at home, with no means of contact between my pupils and me on a day when four more of them are taking their tests. I will have to find a pay phone.
12.01pm: So far, so good. Only a few cirrus clouds decorate the sky, and the mountains are bathed in a clear, golden light. The pupils are doing well too. Sam passed quite easily, only a few minor faults. Then, while I took Connie out for her pre-test lesson, Katie also passed (in her own car). I have to admit, I am slightly less confident about Connie. Her manoeuvres and emergency stop are fine, better than Sam’s, but she just lacks confidence. She does know what to do, but, because her instruction had been so regimented - so reliant on reference points - she is still asking for confirmation on when to be in which gear, and when to start braking etc. Hopefully, it is just nerves and, hopefully, she shook off those nerves once she got underway, but we can only wait and see. A couple of tour coaches have parked at the harbour, so the village is now full of elderly tourists crossing the roads without looking. Connie is a very vigilant driver though, so I am hoping she will get a chance to display her awareness.
1.39pm: I guess it was too much to hope for a clean sweep. Sadly, Connie didn’t pass. She got asked to do a ‘Turn in the road’ early on in the test. She did it, but obviously not as well as she usually does because it played on her mind and she began worrying whether she had already failed (she hadn’t, she only picked up a minor fault for control). This led to her making mistakes and she failed for not changing down, from 4th, to an appropriate gear (2nd in this case) when she got stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle. She seems ok, and I told her to re-book her test as soon as possible, but she may have to wait until next year to get another shot at the test in Ullapool (only 7 tests a month).
I then picked Catriona up for a quick hour’s lesson. She is a much more confident driver and wants me to sit in the back, during her test, ‘so that she can have someone to chat to.’ I am always happy to sit in the back if they want (it beats sitting in a car park), but I will not be allowed to say anything unless the examiner talks directly to me. I am not allowed to move or give any signals (such as a Charles Ingram-style cough).
Earlier I found a phonebox and called Andy, but no reply, so I left a message saying that I would pick him up from the supermarket at 1.25pm (hoping desperately that he would get the message). I got to the supermarket at 1.26pm and no sign of Andy. I took a chance and drove the quarter of a mile to the Test Centre and was hugely relieved to see him standing there, waiting. We only had two minutes before the test, so it was a very rushed run-through of the ‘show me, tell me’ questions. I feel sorry for him that he was not able to get a drive before his test - I wouldn’t like to go out on test ‘cold’. Fortunately, it has no clouded over, which means that there will be less problems with visibility for Andy. It does mean that it is a wee bit chilly for me though, out here in the car park.
3.14pm: That’s it. The end of the tests. Unfortunately Andy did not pass. I think it is partly because he did not get the chance to have an hour before his test. He had been practising in his girlfriend’s car, which obviously had brakes less sharp than mine. So, at the start of his test, he picked up a serious fault for braking too sharply. Again, I advised him to re-book as soon as possible, but I am concerned about the waiting time in Ullapool. The alternative is to take his test in Gairloch (which is an even smaller coastal village).
We had a happy ending though. Catriona passed with just three minor faults. She asked Ian, the examiner, if I could sit in the back, which pleased me because it was getting a bit chilly. Often, when I am sat in the back, I squirm with anxiety when the pupil does things they just don’t do in their lessons. However, it was almost a pleasure sitting in the back of Catriona’s test because she did (almost) everything perfectly - especially her reaction to pedestrians stepping out in front of her. Her only faults were a couple of mirror omissions and one gear fault.
It is now 3.21 and it is time for me to head back to Inverness. It feels strange that I still have one more lesson to go before I can head home. After that, although I say so myself, I think I deserve a slap-up meal (which Jane will, no doubt, have prepared) and a pint of Jennings Sneck Lifter.
I’ll leave with you with a question: Where does the phrase ‘slap-up meal’ originate from? (No, I don’t know, although I do know what a ‘Sneck Lifter’ is… I have come across many of them in my time).
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