Of Course

Hello, dear reader!

So, after last week’s most welcome intervention by Tina, the wonderful woman I am so proud to call my wife, I’m afraid once more you are stuck with another of my attempts at blogging. Sorry about that.

The truth is, that today, in a rather unusual twist, I know exactly what I’m writing about. It won’t be as momentous or heartfelt as last week, it won’t be of as much import, but it regards an event that will, with a little luck, be the one that serves as the most impactful of my own personal week.

You see, I’ve been a bad boy.

From Need To Speed
Not this week. Well, not more than any other week, anyway. No, the bad goes back a couple of weeks, and a trip to The White Rose Centre, a shopping complex in my native Leeds.

It was a nice day. A good day. Myself and Tina took the time to have a spot of lunch and spend some of our Xmas money on things we didn’t necessarily need. I think that might go some way to explaining why, on the way home, and possibly feeling a little over-euphoric due to the retail-therapy, I got caught speeding.

It wasn’t anything dramatic. There were no sirens, no chase, no bullhorn delivered exhortations to pull over. Instead it was, presumably, a simple flash of a speed camera, followed up by a letter penned in cold-blooded officialese. I had been photographed doing 34 in a 30 zone, did I want to ‘fess up, or did I want to challenge it?

Fine And Dandy
There’s a cantankerous side to me that flares up at times like this. A part of me that wants to 'take on the man’ and have my day in court, calling out the system and all its flaws, denouncing the money-grabbing, speed traps so cunningly placed in places they just know I will pass (because it’s obviously a conspiracy aimed squarely at me. I mean look at me. I’m so very important. It’s no wonder they’re all out to get me. What do you mean? No—you’re paranoid). Luckily, it’s a side of me that is soon brought round to grumbling reason by a nice cup of tea.

So, bang-to-rights as I was, I ‘fessed up, and a few days later I got another letter couched in the same impersonal terms and enquiring as to whether I wished to pay a £100 fine and get 3 points on my licence, or if I wanted to pay an £88 fine and attend a Speed Awareness course. There wasn’t an option to say no thank-you, I’d rather we just forget the whole thing and keep a hold of my not-at-all-hard-earned money, thank-you so-very-much. I thought that was a shame, really.

Now, money is tight at the moment, as it is for most of us, and £12 is £12. So, although it wasn’t exactly my idea of hi-jinks, I swallowed my pride and accepted the invite to the course.

A Room Of My Own
It wasn’t the first time I’d attended such an educational seminar. No, that would have been some 12 or 15 years ago (I’m a good boy, on the whole—honest). Time, however, has moved on, and with the rise of the Zoom call during lock-down it wasn’t the greatest surprise to learn that an online version was available. I weighed up the options, decided that driving to, and more importantly, from, such a course might be counterproductive, and decided to attend from the comfort of my couch.

On paying my money (sob!) I was informed I needed to be in a room on my own, free of distractions, with a stable internet connection and a fully-charged or plugged in computer. The last point was pretty simple, but in a house with a wife, a dog, and three cats, the former was harder to arrange. Tina agreed to an emergency nap, and Bonnie-dog was easily persuaded to do the same. The cats, however, well it was like herding, um…cats.

In the end, it seemed letting them roam was more productive than having 3 little voices mewing at the door, so that’s what I did. Then, at the appropriate time, and with the laptop checked for sound and vision, I patiently sat in the waiting room, shooing the curious felines from the screen and getting ready to endure what I felt sure would be a horrendous experience.

It wasn’t all that bad.

Just Stop
I’m not going to say that it was a fun way to spend 2 and a half hours. I’m not going to pretend I’ll be queueing up to repeat the experience (which, when you think about it, would be counterproductive from the police’s point of view). It really wasn’t too painful, though, and it highlighted a few things I’d maybe misplaced in the storeroom of my mind (i.e. forgot).

Stopping distances, for instance. I mean as a driver of some 30 years experience, stopping distances are not something I consciously think about. It’s something I do automatically, with all the judgement of experience, as I’m guessing most people do. It’s not surprising I couldn’t conjure the answers to the various speeds from my disease-riddled mind when pressured to do so.

That may be beside the point.

What I meant to say was the course was, on the whole, if not fun, then certainly more than tolerable, I didn’t feel like a waste of my time. The material was well presented and well delivered, by someone who knew what they were talking about (a driving instructor, no less). The slides were well designed. The short video, slightly dated, and a little cheesy, but still impactful and informative, and at no point did I feel ‘told off’ or talked down to.

Lessons Learned
Really, apart from one enthusiastic, but slightly inappropriate attendee, who threatened to take the course over, but was pulled back into line just in time to prevent a 3 minute tirade against white vans and motorbikes spilling into local politics and ethnic diversity, there wasn’t a moment I wanted out of the virtual room. 

Was it worth £88 and an afternoon out of my oh-so busy day (that may be sarcasm)? No. But, then, at the end of the day, even if it had been pure purgatory, I was the person to send me there. Even if it had been the most tooth-pullingly awful afternoon of my recent experience, the person enduring it would have been the one initiating it. (there’s a whole religious analogy I hate in there, but I’m going to skip merrily past it and pretend it never happened (It’s my blog. If you want to discuss such things, start your own).

To cut a far-too-long story short, it’s not an experience I’m planning to repeat. Did I learn a huge amount—No. Will it make me more mindful of speed in the future—Yes.

I guess from that perspective, it’s job done.


Until next time.

***

Hey, folks! If you would care to take a look at some of my more creative writing, then the links below will transport you to the magical worlds of a few anthologies my short (and in two cases, very short) stories have been included in. Feel free to check ’em out!

New Tales Of Old: Volume 2

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09TMVTX9H/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Death Ship

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/9198684140/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_TWEMTA3KWK7T89QEZPF6?fbclid=IwAR322Fx5nfgVUQAA62ZZ6CUsNnBm8pbSxPanzz6Qkjg3vAv4ESipq7iKKhs

https://www.waterstones.com/book/death-ship/david-green/s-o-green/9789198684148?fbclid=IwAR2gP4CXHSG7wTccO39wOqXFtI81k0259Ep8DUM48Ki6kTUdlKoF3yafojA

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9198684140/ref=ewc_pr_img_1?smid=A2XZ7JICGUQ1CX&psc=1&fbclid=IwAR2Wa6sGxb82_VCsC7l1CGXwHjsSwTheqba6jDX_G8EDsywZoGpC93nXr2w

Reaperman

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reaperman-Drabbles-3-Legends-Night-ebook/dp/B099NNPTQ1A

Pestilence

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pestilence-Revelations-Black-Ink-Fiction/dp/B09MDLZGHY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2VP38WZDWJVAF&keywords=black+ink+fiction&qid=1654090896&sprefix=black+ink+fiction%2Caps%2C218&sr=8-1

The Musketeers Vs Cthulhu

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Musketeers-Cthulhu-Court-King-Louis-ebook/dp/B09YQKQQB7/ref=sr_1_18?crid=2VP38WZDWJVAF&keywords=black+ink+fiction&qid=1654091002&sprefix=black+ink+fiction%2Caps%2C218&sr=8-18