Sitting your driving test again – even a mock one – when you’re old enough to have been behind the wheel for 22 years was never going to be easy.
But at least I could reassure myself that, by taking it in Golspie, I was 77.1% to the good for a pass.
I felt reasonably confident but it has been a long time since my mirror-signal-manoeuvre days – and almost as long since I used a manual vehicle.
The test started well enough in a bright, cold day in a twenty-is-plenty zone.
But one of the biggest differences these days is that satnav is now used to guide learners through quite a chunk of the proceedings.
Problems arose when we entered the town of Brora with its warren of side streets and it told me to “take a right in 500 yards”.
It was actually the fifth right after a bridge and up an incline at a crossroads and that meant I was left checking the display almost as much as the road.
Then the sleet and snow started on a single track road and approaching a blind corner at a fork in the road I was told my approach was a little swift.
Bad habits crept up on me after that – not being more periscopic when reversing out of a parking place and not returning my hand to the wheel when changing gear.
Ultimately, I failed by a margin that was not narrow, numbers that I will take to the grave.
But Mr MacDonald kindly told me this was normal – when experienced drivers return to sit their test without taking lessons nearly 90% fail.
So from my experience, I can only assume that the good folks of Sutherland are quick learners or have good teachers – because it certainly didn’t seem the easiest place to take a test to me.
