Driving Miss Crazy

A friend was over from Ireland at the weekend to see her man, who lives in Scally-land (that's Liverpool for all you people fortunate enough not to live in this country). And I got invited along to play gooseberry, which suits me fine because in his house, playing gooseberry means I get unlimited wine and access to his extensive DVD collection whilst they canoodle on the sofa. Hey, I have no shame.

So, anyways, I thought, great, a chance to hang out with my mate and her man, and so I set off at 2pm on Saturday afternoon for the half hour drive.

Six hours later, I finally arrived at his house.

What went wrong? Did I drive through a Bermuda-type triangle near Warrington? Did aliens abduct me, perform strange (yet sort of exciting) experiments on my nether regions before spitting me back onto this godforsaken planet? Did I just drive REALLY SLOWLY in the granny lane all the way? Nope, nope, and nope again. I got lost. That's what happened.

Now, I know all the guys reading this are snorting and thinking "But, of course you got lost, for you are female and everyone knows that girls are shite at directions, navigation and driving in general". But youre wrong! I'm really good at driving! I'm quite nifty at navigating. I'm a whiz at reading maps! I've driven across most of Canada and the United States without getting lost once, goddamnit!

And yet, I cannot understand driving in England. I get lost ALL THE TIME! Even on routes I drive every bloody day. At first, I'll admit, I thought it was me. I thought that listening to Radio 1 every morning had finally caused my few remaining brain cells to leak out my ears, rendering me vegetable-like and unable to negotiate getting from Point A to Point B, even though its a straight road between the two.

But then, I realised, that it wasn't me (of course! Ptsh! As if!). I realised that it's actually England. Or, more precisely, England's road signs. Let me demonstrate with a recent example of a journey of mine.

Not long ago, I was going from somewhere to somewhere. I can't remember exactly where, so we'll call the two places Point A and Point B. I was travelling from Point A; destination Point B. I set out, and saw a road sign, pointing straight ahead for Point B, Point C and Point D. Great! Ill follow that sign.

Couple of miles down the road, another road sign, pointing straight ahead for Points B, C and D. Fantastic. We're sucking diesel now, boys and girls!

Next thing, I get to a T junction. Theres a sign. Arrow pointing left for Point C, arrow pointing right for Point D. No sign of B. Nowhere. Nada. Zip. Not being a native to this country, I had no idea whether B was nearer to C or D. So, basically, I was fucked.

As luck would have it, I turned left (one of my life philosophies has always been "If in doubt, choose C", and it's always worked for me), and a bit further down the road, I saw another sign for Point B, so I was ok. But, what on earth is up with those road signs? Is it some sort of sick joke that the British government has come up with to piss off foreign people so much that they'll leave the country, never to return? I think it might be. And I think it might just work!

Course, I was relating this same tale to my beau, who is English, and he just rolled his eyes, made some sort of piffling sound and intimated that I shouldnt be allowed to drive anywhere by myself because I'm just a girl and girls are stooopid.

Then he got lost the other day driving into Manchester..

It doesnt happen very often, but every now and then I'm reminded that life is just and sweet ;)