driving – Honest Lies

The One Without the P Plates

The Angel of the North

I don’t know how it came about, but I was talking to my coworkers about ideal places we would like to live. I mentioned my love of the countryside, somewhere quiet and remote and close to nature, and my coworker said that I would like Northumberland. I found myself returning to this conversation when I decided a couple of months ago that I really wanted a break. My birthday was coming up, it was summer, and the weather was beautiful. I was stressed and tired. I wanted to go chill out on a beach and go for long walks and enjoy the summer and just…be away from everything for a little bit. I didn’t want to fuss with flights or adjusting to another culture, I didn’t want to spend that kind of money. I wanted to stay in the UK. I wanted to get in my car and drive somewhere. At the same time I didn’t want to drive too far, still being a relatively inexperienced driver. So, remembering that conversation, I looked into Northumberland. Sandy beaches – check. Nature – check. Impressive castles – check. Me – sold. And it was under a three hour drive from me to boot. It was perfect. Everything was pretty expensive and booked out as I tried to find accommodation last minute in peak season but eventually I found myself a little cottage for a reasonable price. I booked it, booked my leave and counted down the weeks. Finally, it was July 21st. I packed up the car and I was off. One week in a little self-catered cottage in a tiny village in Northumberland, no responsibilities, and a list of things I wanted to see, but no itinerary.

Bamburgh Castle

First stop – the Angel of the North. The total journey time from home to the cottage in Budle Bay was around two hours 40 minutes so I had to stop, so why not make that stop touristy? Seeing so I was in the area I thought I may as well view an iconic British landmark. I pulled off the A1 and parked up and walked around the statue which…wasn’t as ugly as expected? I found it quite impressive? It’s bloody massive – I saw it well before the turn off. (It was very exciting. The drive was kinda boring so I got quite excited to realise I was near Newcastle, and thus finally in the county!) – and the engineering behind it seemed impressive. I took a bunch of pictures, had something to eat, and then carried on. I stopped at a supermarket, I got lost, I got hopelessly excited at my first glimpse of the sea, and finally I found my cottage. I admit, when I first saw it the location blew my mind – I was right next to the beach! But inside I wasn’t quite sure – the cottage was a little bland and there were a lot of bugs and I realised it didn’t have a shower. I started to fall for the cottage when I saw the beach views out of the window, and by nightfall I had definitely fallen for it – it was so damn cozy, I just had to adjust to all the bugs (which, is probably to be expected for such a remote location.) I did not do much that Saturday, or even Sunday. (On Sunday I literally lay on the beach and read for almost the entire day, that was it.) (It was perfect.)

On Monday I decided to venture out. I was going to go on a boat trip to the Farne Islands but I didn’t feel up to it, so instead I walked to Bamburgh to see the castle. The walk from Budle Bay to Bamburgh was unexpectedly long, and the weather was much hotter than I expected too, so I was hopelessly overdressed and feeling it. There were amazing coastal views though, and eventually pretty good views of the castle and the Farne Islands in the distance. Once I got to the castle I ate lunch (which was amazing – in particular the cake I had was to die for) and had a look around. The castle has been restored beautifully and it was really interesting. I took the bus back after, and chilled out back at my cottage (by this point I was really settling in. I had all my stuff out, my own bedding on the bed, and it was nice that. A real benefit of self-catering in your country is the amount of home comforts you can bring! I’m sad I forgot to bring my own pillow though…)

Dunstanburgh Castle

The next day I lazed away the morning then in the afternoon I drove down to visit Dunstanburgh Castle. I was expecting to park at the castle so got a bit lost before parking up and actually researching and finding I had to park at Craster and walk up to the castle. Oops. This did mean it was pretty late in the afternoon by the time I had parked up and started on my walk. I got to the castle about an hour before it closed. I think that was enough though. I had a look at the ruins, saw the kittiwakes on the cliffs by the castle, climbed up to the top floor of the gatehouse of the castle and admired the views, and then left. I had rushed the walk to the castle because I was aware I was pushing it for the opening times, so as I left I lingered, taking my time to walk back. The walk is right along the coast with rocky beaches with oyster catchers and gulls there. And, in a lucky moment, I turned back for some reason, caught sight of movement in the water a little way behind me. My first thought – whales!

I turned and ran pell-mell back the way I had come and paused on a high point and was amazed to see dolphins out in the bay. I ran a little more back, then set out to cross the rocks, trying to get closer to the water, trying not to trip and hurt myself, trying to watch the dolphins all the meanwhile. There were so many of them, they were moving northwards, and all I could really see was their fins, occasionally a dark sliver of their backs, but occasionally they would jump out the water and show themselves. It was the most incredible thing. I really couldn’t believe it. Real, wild dolphins. I knew they got them in the area but I never imagined I’d get to actually see them, not without taking a boat into deeper water. But there they were – a huge school, travelling together along the coast. I watched them and watched them and even when they had long disappeared I stayed there, desperate for another glance. Then I realised where I was – on a beach where I had no idea of the tide times and retreated reluctantly back to land. I kept on walking back towards Craster, even slower now. I kept watching the water, hoping to see the dolphins again, but they didn’t show up again.

Sunset, with Bamburgh castle to the left and the Farne Islands to the right

I got back to my car and then drove to Seahouses, where I bought some chips and a battered sausage – typical British chip shop fare! – and found a place where I could eat them near the coast. From my vantage point I could see the sun set over the Farne Islands directly in front of me, and to the left of me, Bamburgh castle, also backlit by the warm tones of the setting sun. There in the bay I saw those black shapes in the water and I like to think they were dolphins, though it was so far, they could have been seals, or even nothing at all but my hopeful imagination. It was very peaceful and absolutely beautiful. I drove back to the cottage, ready to take an early night as the next day would be the highlight of the trip – a boat trip out to the Farne Islands.

What are these Farne Islands? A series of rocky islands in the North Sea where hundreds of sea birds come to breed – including puffins and arctic terns – and which seals also use as a laydown area. :) I was not looking forward to the boat trip in the slightest, but I was very excited as to what I was going to see out there!

Random beach panorama. I like the shape of the clouds…

(Title explanation – I decided that for this road trip I would take off my P plates. These are a sticker you put on the front and back of your car which have a big green “P” on them, with the theory being that these will alert other drivers to the fact that you are a new driver and so hopefully give you some space/understanding/patience. Yes, it’s been like a year since I passed my test. But I never had the courage to take them off even as I knew I was pushing it, with these that are meant to only be used when you have recently passed your test. I decided that I wanted this trip to either be the first or last trip with them on though, that it was time to take the jump and get rid of the P signs once and for all. The last trip seemed like it would cast a sadness on my trip, so I decided that it should be the first. To add a bit of extra excitement. In the end, it wasn’t that big a deal. Taking them off, or driving with them. I mean the P plates didn’t want to come off they had been stuck on so long, I had to take a soapy solution and very carefully wash the residue off. But once I’d started taking them off it was easy and I didn’t miss them, it was no different driving without them than with even… It was all rather anti-climatic really :| )

“I end up feeling empty, like you’ve taken something out of me, and I have to search my body for the scars, thinking ‘Did he find that one last tender place to sink his teeth in?'”

This weekend was another long weekend for me: I’m disorganized enough that I booked the Friday off without realising I was doing so directly after a long bank holiday weekend. Oh well. I went home to my parents on Friday and stayed with them over the weekend. On Friday and Saturday we chilled at home and I showed my parents all my photos from my trip to south Africa, and then on Sunday I went for a nice walk with my dad into the Peak District, before traveling back to my flat. It was a nice weekend, but also awkward, with the usual bickering and arguing to listen to, and try to blank over. Arguments between my parents, my mom ranting at me, and my sister came round once just to shout at everyone which made it all awkward, and it’s just tiring, that kind of atmosphere. I wish my family got on better. Or rather, that we could find some middle ground. Either we are getting on or we aren’t and it’s often hard to tell when the tide has turned. I felt particularly sad to be shouted at by my sister, who I usually get on well with, but she has a cruelty to her, which shows itself randomly and in that way, always takes me by surprise. You never know when she will turn on you, and that makes me feel vulnerable and sad. (It’s confusing – how just a week ago everything was fine and yet now it’s not.) It hurts to see such ugly sides of the people you love. Sometimes it feels like the only one who really wants me to come back, and who enjoys me being there, is my father. It’s a little disheartening – to endure over two hours of boring public transport, and to pay the ridiculous over expense of it, to go there and just end up feeling tired and drained. But I guess if it’s making just one person happy, I shall continue to try and be good and visit my parents as often as I can.

Still. Once going home to my parents felt like a refuge, but now it feels like just another place I need to put on a mask and craft a careful personality in order to avoid stirring the pot or doing something wrong, much like work. It’s not great. I feel unbelievably tired of it all. It was a good walk on Sunday though – the sun was trying to shine, it did not rain, there was no wind, no snow or ice, and the air was warm but not too warm, and smelt fresh after rain on Saturday. We did have to squelch through some terrible mud at one point, but otherwise it was not too hard and very pleasant.

Today I started work at another office, which requires a much longer commute. To get there, I drove on narrow, winding, pot holed, country roads for a good deal of the way, feeling pressured to go much faster than I was comfortable with the entire time by other people driving on my tail. I don’t see what they think they are acheiving by driving on my bumper, except making me more nervous and prone to mistakes. Sigh. This morning there was a thick mist which obscured my view, so it felt like I was driving into nothing. It was very disorientating. Thankfully it had cleared for my evening commute. And, although I was even more stressed this evening, tired and desperate to be home, not bumping along on the country roads with some person on my tail, the countryside was beautiful, and I saw a lot of wildlife. Tommorow I’m trying a different route though, which should hopefully be less in the country. Some much better roads. I hope it goes well.

Independence

My sister came to visit me on the weekend. On Saturday we went out for lunch and to see a show, and of course to shop, and then we spent the evening chilling out at home. On Sunday we went to IKEA – and I drove.

I recently got back in touch with my driving instructor and arranged two lessons. The first was to help me with hill starts and teach me how to reverse park into a bay, and the second was motorways (which you may also know as freeway, highway…expressway? ). The former was just brushing up on things I already sort of knew, but the latter was completely new. I was terrified that lesson, so afraid I would do something wrong and get hooted at or cause an accident. Ever since I got my licence people have been telling me that motorway driving was easier than normal driving but I couldn’t believe them. I was scared and then the longer I put it off the more scared I became. Then I spent a week driving my coworker home as his car was out of service and at the end of it he said my driving was ok. Having that reassurance from someone who has no motive to compliment me was the boost I needed. I contacted my instructor and I went out on the motorway. And it was fine, it went well even. It helped that it was a Sunday and very quiet, probably, but it turned out to be nowhere near as awful as I expected. It was mostly tiring – there was so much to concentrate on and a lot to take in.

But since then I hadn’t had the courage to go out again. So I asked my sister to help me out since she was at mine. Thankfully she agreed. And, she was a patient instructor with me. There was more traffic, but it was still fine. We made it without incident. (Sadly I couldn’t show off my new ability to reverse into a bay as it was too busy but oh well. One thing at a time is enough!)

I think, and I say this very tentatively, I’m really doing ok with this driving thing. My confidence is growing all the time. I’ve even been able to go out and learn new skills. And I’m actually kind of loving it. Like, I still dislike driving but I just love the independence it gives me. Like I feel about plane travel- the process isn’t fun, but it’s incredible the ability to get from A to B like that. Someone once told me I needed to hurry up and get my licence because nothing beats being able to get in your car and go wherever you like and they were SO RIGHT. Public transport has some benefits, sure, but I can’t bring myself to miss it. I feel my world expanding beyond bus routes and timetables and it’s amazing. I can go anywhere, I can choose when I leave, I can control my environment within my car (no more being stuck on smelly, humid yet cold buses !) I can take luggage! As much luggage as I want, not just as much as I can carry/reasonably fit on the bus without making other people hate me. It’s exhilarating. I couldn’t believe it when I got to IKEA. I’d always have to wait for someone to be available to take me to IKEA, but now I can go myself . Now I can use the motorway I’m hoping to finally free myself of public transport for good. I actually can’t afford it anymore now that I’m 25 and therefore no longer eligible for young person’s discounts (sniff) so I honestly couldn’t have gotten my licence and my car at a better time. I couldn’t have finally gotten on the motorway at a better time.

I feel a little bad sometimes, a little lazy perhaps, but mostly a bit guilty because of how un-eco friendly cars are and I want to care about that. But it’s amazing to have this kind of independence, to gain so much time back, to save so much money. I just love having a car and I am so glad I finally got my licence and said car.

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”

Today I decided I was going to take a day trip to the Yorkshire Coast again. The difference this time was- I was going to drive it. I set off very early in the morning, grabbed a Starbucks, and then headed across to the coast. I had just a single high-speed road to take before a set of narrow, twisty country roads so it wasn’t beyond my abilities – that, and the roads were very quiet early on a Sunday morning. It was just very long.

GannetsMy trip started with a visit to the RSPB Bempton Cliffs. Context: The RSPB is the Royal Society of Birds. The Bempton Cliffs are a long stretch of sheer cliffs part of the Yorkshire coast which serve as a key nesting site for thousands of sea birds, many of them rare (especially in these parts) such as Puffins and Gannets. I have been wanting to go there for the longest time, because I want to see puffins (because who wouldn’t want to see Puffins.) Although the drive did get stressful on the approach to the cliffs, because of aforementioned twisty country roads, I got there OK and even managed to park OK. It was just past 10 when I had arrived, so the drive was just over an hour and a half. Bearable, especially with my excitement about the puffins to motivate me!

At the entrance to the nature reserve a very nice man from the RSPB talked me through my visit and what I could expect to see and he provided a helpful handout – for free no less – with detailed illustrations of the birds to help identify them.
I entered the reserve and began my walk along the cliffs, stopping at all the viewpoints to look for puffins. There were thousands of birds coating every available surface of the cliffs, sitting on the water and flying around the cliffs. (They were incredibly noisy too.) There were a lot of people there too, and I felt quite inadequate compared to the sheer number of them carrying all manners of binoculars, tripods, telescopes and DLSRs with what looked like a meter of lenses attached to them. A lot of people there were clearly Very Serious about birdwatching, and were planning to spend a long time at it. (I even spotted a man asleep, and snoring, on a bench and I imagined him spending his morning at a viewpoint, taking a noon nap before carrying on.) I felt a little sad when they could spot puffins and no matter how much I scanned with my camera on full zoom I just couldn’t. Looking for tiny little puffins among all those thousands of birds was a very strange, frustrating game of ‘Where’s Wally?’, with the picture far away and constantly shifting.

PUFFINS!!!But, I did manage to see some puffins. Maybe not as many as I wanted/expected? But I was so close to the ones I did see which was absolutely amazing. I definitely agree with the RSPB information that they are slightly comical in looks, but I also found them incredibly cute. I could also see Gannets, Kittiwakes, Herring Gulls, Guillemots and Razorbills. (Basically all the birds listed on the sheet bar two!) I saw the very young, very fluffy babies of the gannets and kittiwakes, nestled in under a parent (Interestingly, and luckily, when I look over my photos I can zoom in and spot things I never picked up with my own eyes – an extra puffin, more babies. It’s pretty cool and I can see why most people were carrying about such heavy equipment – their photos must be incredible.) It was absolutely amazing and it would have been worth the drive just for that, but my day would get better.

My sister is in holiday in Scarborough with some girlfriends at the moment. So I asked her if I could crash their holiday for the day so I could see her- and she said yes :) I drove into Scarborough from the Bempton Cliffs, getting a little lost trying to find the car park I had chosen thanks to my GPS going wonky, but again just about managing it. I met my sister and her friends at a small, out of the way restaurant where we had food like hot sandwiches, burgers, chips, salad and nachos for lunch. It was all freshly made, very simple but flavorful and reasonably priced. 10/10. After a filling lunch we made our way to the beach, where we set ourselves up for the rest of the afternoon. I waded into the water with my sister for a bit, but then we both just lay down and chilled in the sun. Although the day had started out a bit grey, and I had started out wrapped up at the cliffs, it turned into a gloriously bright and sunny day and I was hot even after shedding all my extra layers.

It was really relaxing, lazing about in the sun with my sister and her friends, talking about nothing in particular and soaking in the warmth.

We then went into one of the arcades and wasted only a small amount of money playing the 2 pence a go games, then we did some quick souvenir shopping and headed back to the car. The walk back to the car was unfortunately uphill most of the way and I don’t think anyone was impressed with my choice of parking. :/

Although this was my first time taking passengers, thankfully the nerves about that didn’t get me too much and I drove everyone back safely to their accommodation. I pretty much dropped them off then set off back home. The drive back was way more tiring and I had to stop for some caffeine – even though it was late and I knew it would affect my sleep, I was getting worried for myself and my concentration. After getting a shot of caffeine in me I was OK for the rest of the drive. Thankfully the roads remained quiet and I got home in good time. I am interested to see how I will sleep tonight, if I will manage to wake up tomorrow morning, and how driving will be tomorrow… I’ve had a great day though and I’m feeling pretty proud for all the “driving firsts” I ticked off today, successfully.

Post Title: Flannery O'Connor

“And the river grows inside of me”

When it comes to driving there are three things I am most afraid of – a collision when I’m driving (I see the aftermath of these too often on the road to work), hitting an animal when driving (see road kill too much too), and crashing into one of my co-workers cars when parking at work. (Well, I fear crashing when parking all the time, but most keenly at work. I do not want to have to face one of my co-workers everyday knowing I smashed up their car. It’s not something that should or does happen.)

Guess which one occurred yesterday?

I drove into the work car park and there was a small crowd of people gathered at the smoking point there, a couple of them hanging in the road. I was too aware of them. I didn’t position myself properly and as I drove in to the bay and felt myself coming too close to the car next to me I didn’t stop and correct it I just thought it should be ok because I wanted to get parked and away from the stares of those people. The two standing in the road, their jaws dropped as they watched me smash into the car next to me. I can’t forget the look on their faces. It was loud, it was obvious, it must have looked quite aggressive. I somehow managed to correct myself and get into the parking space, turned off the engine, then I covered my face with my hands and wished fervently for the ground to swallow me whole. I felt so stupid and embarrassed and scared. I tried to phone my dad but couldn’t get through, then I googled, became even more scared from the results, tried again and again to phone my dad and finally got through. The tears came then. I sobbed down the phone at him, but thanks to him I at least had a plan (and some reassurance, too. I badly needed that…) After the phone call I gave myself some time to cry and panic some more, then I forced myself to calm down. I took pictures, I went to reception and asked them to look up the details of the car owner, who was thankfully not part of my immediate team at work, and she came out and I had to tell her I had damaged her car. She took it well, seeming more surprised than anything else (who can blame her. Its a ridiculous situation) I took her email. Later, much later, after I had time to process and phone my insurance I sent her my details and the photos.

Now I wait. She hasn’t responded yet and she wasn’t in the office today. I don’t know what comes next.

I can’t believe this happened. I feel deeply embarrassed. I’ve spent so long learning to drive and I’m still…not very good at it. It was very hard to drive back from work yesterday, and then to drive again today. I feel vulnerable and scared. I’m worried for what I’ll do, what wrong judgement I’ll make next.

Mostly, have I mentioned that this is extremely embarrassing?

In the end though, as embarrassing as it is at least it is just embarrassing. At least I didn’t flatten some poor innocent animal or drive a car off the road or get driven off the road. I didn’t even dent either of our cars – it’s superficial paint damage only as far as I could tell. Nothing was hurt but my pride. (And, I fear, my reputation at work. I don’t think anyone else knows about it but I fear it becoming known…)

Post Title: Röyksopp - Running to the Sea (Seven Lions Remix)

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