Driving

It all started with a birthday present to myself: to improve my driving skills so that I could smoothly slither backwards into a parking space on the first attempt.  Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

I heard of an opportunity to take a Mature Driver’s Review at subsidised rates.  Ahhhh! This is what I need – this will not only help the parking dream, but also tell me what to do on a mountainous single track (broken) road when a tractor with wheels so large that they fill my total vision, is coming at me in the opposite direction.  (Nearly all our roads are single track.)

I cheerily signed up.  I should have been suspicious when James (not his real name) met me away from my home territory, and then took me on a jaunt over beautifully paved 2-lane Welsh roads, with hardly a hill in sight – 360 degree visibility on the whole journey.

 Next day:  I received the written results.  It was not a review; it was a test. James was not an instructor; he was an assessor.

I failed.

And I had received no help for my initial requests.

There is great admiration for people who, throughout their lives, push their learning boundaries beyond their capabilities, but this isn’t me.  Ever since completing high school, I have surrounded myself with situations I could do.  Gone are the days when I suffered the humiliation of PE classes, after having once landed on the instructor’s head in a “gymnastic” exercise (he said I could do it.  I said I couldn’t.  I was right.)  And, I sincerely believe I managed to get a C in art class by helping the teacher clean up the smelly jack-in-the-pulpits we’d been drawing.  Kids have to go through these experiences.  I’d liberated myself from them.  Those days were gone, and I was now working full time in CAN-and-COULD-DO mode.

So, the unplanned failure was quite a blow.

“Er, have you read the Highway Code recently?” my friend Glynis asked several times.

 No.

 “Why not sign up with a qualified driving instructor for getting yourself up to date?”

 Why not indeed.

 I searched the government website and found the most fully qualified instructor I could locate.  Mark.  I recommend him highly.

 He read my test results.  “These are exactly what I would expect from a mature driver,” he said.

 So the lesson began….for an hour and a half.  We spent a long time in a lesser-used parking area. Over and over again I parked, coming in from the right-hand side, then from the left.  I was made aware that I was NOT aware of the direction my front wheels were going.  Well, that might be one reason why I …..you know.

 Then we drove through the city.   I did a 5-point turn on one street (“a 5-point turn is acceptable – they no longer require 3- point turns,” he said.).  As I drove, he said the most beautiful words he could have uttered:

“It seems as if you have already taken on board the suggestions from the test.  Here I sit beside you, totally relaxed in the way you drive, and your awareness of traffic around you…”

Bliss!  Heavenly Bliss!

[I’m still practising how to reverse.  So far, out of 37 attempts, I have accomplished exactly Zero one-time slide-ins.  One effort took 8 times to settle my car into the slot.  Another took only two.  I’m seeing Mark again in a week. More learning is on the way.]

 

Poulet Normande – Normandy Chicken

“Do you remember serving us a dish with chicken and apple?” asked Mary, a very long-term friend.  Now, with the deluge of mature fruit to “get through” this year, it was time to find that recipe.  It lurked in a French cookbook I’d bought from a small shop in the southern hills of India over fifty years ago.  I’d just got engaged, and was determined to cook a new recipe for John every day of our lives.  That lasted, haphazardly,  until the children arrived.

For about a kilo (2 lbs) of uncooked chicken pieces:

2 tablespoons Seasoned flour

2 ½ tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons chopped streaky bacon (I used smoked, they suggest unsmoked)

1 chopped onion.

2 sticks celery chopped (I usually de-string it first, with a vegetable peeler)

2 – 3 apples, peeled and roughly chopped

¼ pint cider

½ pint chicken stock [OR 1 can of cider and a chicken stock cube]

3 – 4 tablespoons thick cream.

Seasonings:  salt, pepper, and dried herbs like Herbes de Provence or thyme.

 Dust chicken with seasoned flour.  Gently melt butter in a large saucepan and fry bacon to render additional fat.  Add chicken pieces and saute until lightly browned.  Remove.  Fry onion and chopped celery until beginning to soften.  Sprinkle in any remaining flour.  Stir and cook for several minutes (for flour to absorb additional flavours).  Stir in cider and stock/stock cube and bring to boil.  Return chicken to the pan, cover closely.  Cook until tender.  Dish the chicken and keep hot.  With a stick blender whizz the pan juices until smooth.  Stir in cream.  Adjust seasoning, pour over chicken and voila!

 At this point, the recipe says, “garnish with triangles of bread fried crisp and golden in butter”.  Of course!  Don’t we all!.

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