'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe

Having passed my test, today The Gnu and I headed off towards Lewes in search of a second-hand (or so) car for me. There's a garage that he's been using for ages so naturally we had a look there. What I was expecting to do was to look and see what Paul (the owner) has got in the showroom, poke around at one or two cars, and maybe not actually buy a car today but definitely have a chat with Paul about what he has got and what he can get soon (as I don't actually have a pressing need for a car, so I can wait for one I like rather than taking the first one I see).

Instead I put down the deposit today for a shiny '09-reg car, which should be ready in a couple of weeks once it's been serviced and had a MOT. It's a bit more than I was thinking of spending, and not the most practical choice for a first car... but at the same time it's not a bad choice and could work out very well. It's not even that expensive to insure - a quick check at compare the meerkat market gave similar prices to a 1.2l VW Polo or a 1.0l Nissan Pixo. Even an "is this a good first car" insurance checker says yes.

And besides, it's definitely the more fun choice of car :)

As to what car it actually is... well, I'm going to be cheeky and not say which one it is just yet. You'll just have to guess!

A writeup on time (more or less) for a change!

( Yet more driving )

( Three weeks ago )


( Two weeks ago )


( Last week )


There's not many lessons left until the practical!

So, uh... massively overdue driving post?

( Two weeks ago )

( Last week )

My family has never quite done "normal". Occasionally we feel the need to remind the world of this.

And so last Sunday we stuck L plates on my mum's car, and I drove it most of the way from Horsham back to Fareham, going via Billingshurst and Pulborough, over Bury Hill, and through the serial roundabouts that make up the Chichester bypass. Now, driving their parents' car would be a perfectly normal thing for any young(ish) learner to do. Except we don't do normal, and this extends to cars...



That's me, sitting in my mum's Alfa Romeo 147 2.0 TS, trundling along the A27 somewhere around Chichester. It's a bit of a jump in power from the Ford Fiesta 1.0 EcoBoost I've been learning in! Amazingly insurance wasn't stupidly expensive - the AA do a scheme where your instructor can give you a referral code for short-term learner insurance from Collingwood, and a little under £100 covers me for 28 days.

The roads were very different to the ones I usually encounter in my lessons. There's absolutely no fast dual carriageway roads anywhere near me (that 50mph stretch on the way out of Whiteley doesn't count, by the time you've reached 40 you have to brake for the lights at the next roundabout), and only one fast single-carriageway road which only lasts for a mile or so. The A29, on the other hand, follows the ancient Roman road of Stane Street near Billingshurst and so is a dead straight 60mph road. Even going over Bury Hill the road meanders nicely with flowing corners, and the Alfa would happily take the lot at 60 if I let it. And then after that, it's on to the A27 and my first experience of a 70mph dual carriageway - and yes, I did reach 70!

It's also a very different car to drive to the Ford, and obviously has a fair bit more power. Case in point: leaving one roundabout on the Billingshurst bypass where I would have probably been doing 20mph or so in the Ford, the Alfa was accelerating through 40 (fortunately on a 60mph stretch of road!). It's also a lot more forgiving of being in the right gear and having the right amount of power than the Ford is with its little turbocharged 3-cylinder engine. Unlike the Ford however, the gearbox is incredibly stubborn and vague - when going for 3rd gear I was never quite certain what I'd end up in. And of course the throttle response is completely different, as is the biting point on the clutch (and there's a definite lump of resistance in the middle of the clutch pedal travel), and so gear changes at least to begin with were rather jerky. All that aside though, it's just plain fun to drive - while it's content to trundle along at 50 or so, deep down the Alfa just wants to go.

I have to admit, while the sensible post-learner car to get would be something on the order of a Nissan Micra, there is a part of me that's tempted by an Alfa...

I'm a bit behind on the driving lesson writeups, but better late than never?


( Three weeks worth of writeups )

Next, last week's driving lesson!

( Turning the car around )

So, the increasingly delayed driving lesson writeup :)

( Reversing round corners )

Next week: more reversing!

What to have at the end of a long driving lesson (write-up to follow):



As an aside, because getting photos off of the 3DS is such a kerfuffle (exit game, switch off 3DS, remove memory card and stick in card reader, find .JPG, find corresponding .MPO, persuade Semagic to use the .MPO) I bashed out a noddy little file browser/uploader to stick on the NAS. The Internet is full of all-singing, all-dancing PHP file managers but seems to have a lack of simple little ones that just give a file list and an upload box. All in all, it took me under an hour using nothing more than notepad to write 80-odd lines of PHP that can display a file list, browse and create subdirectories, and upload files.

Edit: fixed unclosed <LABEL> tag and added HTML 5 doctype.

( The script itself )

It's been quite some time since I just sat down and bashed out a little program like that for myself. I hadn't realised quite how much I'd missed that sort of quick coding to make things just that little bit more convenient to use.

This week's lesson was today (well... yesterday by the time this actually gets posted) rather than the usual Tuesday as my instructor was up in London that day (at some book/author event, I think). Which was probably just as well, as I was definitely feeling a bit off back then and had somewhat lost my voice to whatever lurgy is currently doing the rounds. Anyway, I was feeling much better today!

Again I was in the driving seat for the entire lesson - gone are the days of the instructor driving me around! We started off by driving all the way from work along the A27, down past Fareham College and HMS Collingwood, before parking up somewhere in the depths of Gosport. And this time I managed it without stalling or attempting to ram any signposts (well... that bit when I almost stalled coming out of a junction doesn't count as I merely almost stalled).

( Pedestrian crossings! (warning: WALL OF TEXT) )

If that all looks like an enormous wall of text, that's because there's a lot of information to take in in these driving lessons! I think we spent the best part of an hour just going over all the different crossings and how to handle them. Anyway, after that it was time for a tour of Gosport naming the different crossing types are they appeared ("Puffin... Pelican... Pelican... Toucan... trick question, that's just some traffic lights") before heading back up to Fareham along Newgate Lane. Oh, and dealing with plenty of roundabouts and a few crossings in the process, and getting slightly flustered trying to manage mirror/signal/manoeuvre/gear all at the same time. Back outside my flat my instructor gave me a tip on how to handle this - the time to signal for your exit is not so much as you pass the exit before, but a little later when you're pointing straight at your exit. Doing so then is a little easier as there's less stuff happening at the moment.

Next week: how to cope with oncoming traffic!