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I don’t know about you, but I know what it is like to get lost while behind the wheel. As such, I understand well the feelings of bewilderment and frustration that accompany being in an unfamiliar place then circling back on one’s route for the fiftieth time – I call it Groundhog Driving. The problem is, the more forlorn things begin to seem and the more irritated I get, the more likely it is I will suffer a car crash.
Because of this worry, my tactic is to pull over, preferably somewhere I won’t get a parking ticket, and draw breath over a warm cup of tea and a wedge of rich and fluffy, jam and cream packed Victoria sponge.
Only once I have indulged so will I begin to pore over a map and try and conduct a rescue mission to get myself out of the wilderness, urban or otherwise.
I then have to brace myself and study and rehearse in exhausting detail my exit strategy to the point of neurosis. This completed, and the route burned onto my temporal lobe, I set off with all the natural homing instinct of a migratory bird, or so I hope.
Usually I find my way, but if I don’t I usually give in and stop at a bed and breakfast for the night, too ashamed to admit to anyone, neither the B&B owner nor my wife, the reason for my impromptu stopover.
On nights such as this the inability of my pride to own up to such geospatial bungling has even led to my wife suspecting me of infidelity. “Why on earth would you be sightseeing in Milton Keynes darling,” she’ll say. “You said you hate the place.”
“Yes, well, I did say that,” I’ll reply. “Unbearable snobbishness don’t you think, thought I’d test the power of my prejudice. I don’t think it would be fair on poor old Milton Keynes to write it off altogether without actually sampling its possible delights, do you?”
“I don’t believe a word you’re saying – you’re practically panting,” she’ll reply. “You’re not having an affair are you darling? If you are, I can confidently say that you’ve just come up with the worst excuse I’ve ever heard.”
“No, no; no affair; though I’ll let you know if meet anyone here who steals my heart.”
The last thing I could do was admit that I actually stopped over because my head was spinning from having repeatedly failing to link up with the M1; to have stayed any longer on the road would have been to risk a car crash, even only if it would have been of the low speed whiplash-inducing variety.
Perhaps it is the panic-ready aspect of my personality that makes me admire something so antithetical as the blasé character of an 81-year-old Australian man who when lost on his way to buy a newspaper ended up driving 370 miles from his destination before thinking he might need to re-evaluate his bearings.
He told press, I just went out on the road to have a drive, a nice peaceful quiet drive.
"I didn't know where I was going but I knew it was somewhere, and with a bit of luck I would eventually find my wife again," he said.
When asked why he didn’t get a satnav system, he said, "Why would you want one of those? You can't get lost. There is no fun in that."
Admirable indeed. But I’m afraid that my car crash fears may still find me dropping in at a B&B for an impromptu stay.
And why don’t I get a satnav? Well, I tried it once and I got lost.
