Fresh Challenge

Over the years, I have been no stranger to taking the controls of some pretty sophisticated wheels, but today even this machine was in a different league.
Remember the old Austin 7? Or the favoured Morris Minor? Neither were a patch to a Lamborghini or a Ferrari perhaps. And there is still something majestic about a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley. Not to mention a host of cars that have come and gone, some now museum pieces.
That old Austin Seven from  late 1920s vintage was challenging in its own way; then there was what seemed to me to be an impossibly powerful and ungainly, though in fact beautiful  and splendid power of a Honda motorcycle. Did I mention the farm tractor, or the delivery van, even that , at the time, somewhat dubious Skoda which at the time at least had a less than favourable reputation.
But here today, was the challenge to beat them all.  A ride on grass cutting mower. Straightforward enough said my instructor who invited me to take the controls.  And I guess in its own way it was.
Yet I think it would take me rather longer hours than there were hours of sunshine left this afternoon to balance them all so everything was just so.

Oh yes, I could manage a straight line from one side of the lawn to the other — well, almost straight, except for the many excursions  off course. And what happens when you reach the end of the line, and the hedgerow one side, and wall the other? There has to be a straightforward way to stop the machine.  Or simply do an 180 degree turn which I had mastered, although by accident rather than intention.