Will people please stop

throwing themselves in the direction of my car.

Last week Reidski and I were in my car headed for Waterloo Bridge and at the IMAX roundabout. It had - not for the first time in recent weeks - been raining. There were road signs up and Reidski read one out loud - "Anti - skid work." Now literally just as those words left his mouth a motorcyclist came round the roundabout presumably fully intending to drive past us in the opposite direction, but what he did instead was skid, come off his bike, and his bike slid to a halt no more than three inches from my car. I was frozen for a moment with fear and horror. I just did not dare look and had to gather all my courage to get out the car whilst trying to remember back to my St John's Ambulance training course. Thankfully however, once he had had the bike picked up off of him the guy was fine. His legacy for me though has been that I am terrified everytime a motor cyclist comes close to me. That was bad enough.

On Tuesday I was driving into the railway carpark. I was just turning in and there was a white van in the other lane right next to me. From behind that van emerged a woman who walked right into the front of my car. Here my memory kind of plays tricks. I am certain I did actually hit her as I felt it. I don't know how fast I was going - not very thank god - but I know I slammed my brakes on to come to a stop. There was then a totally embarrassing scene in which she practically begged on bended (broken maybe?) knee for my forgiveness, whilst all I could manage was an incoherent ramble along the lines of "OHMIGODTHANKCHRISTYOUAREALRIGHT." She was saying her mother had just died and she was 'miles away', just not thinking what she was doing, totally her fault etc etc, and could she buy me a coffee? "Coffee??!!!???" Bloody hell, I needed a double brandy at the very least and was on the verge of starting smoking for the first time in my life (No, I wasn't quite that bad!) So by the end of this scene it was me who was having to assure her that I was perfectly alright thank you, although she was the one who had leaped in front of my car. I should probably add that she insisted she was not hurt at all.

So now I am terrified of pedestrians too.

Nothing close to either of these two incidents has ever happened to me before in all the years I have been driving. Yes, I know I wrote my own car off earlier this year but that was (much as I hate to admit it) totally my fault. But now I have become a bag of driving nerves.


If my son passes the driving test he makes his second attempt at later today my driving nerves will be totally shredded, but to look on the bright side, at least it will mean I will stop worrying about myself.