"Ándale Ándale"

As you approach Kirkby Lonsdale on the A65 from the east, the road curves down to your left and you descend towards Devil's Bridge. The land sweeps away to either side, following the course of the river and it appears that this pleasing prospect has an adverse affect on the right foot of a certain class of driver, which has resulted in a speed camera being put at the beginning of the bridge.

In the thirty-three years I have been driving, I have had three speeding tickets, all from cameras. On each occasion I have been awarded three points and a fine. Well, that was true up until a few weeks ago when I fell foul of the camera at Devil's Bridge for a second time and I felt a pang of distress at my currently blemish free licence regaining the three points that evaporated from it a couple of years or so ago.

But then, on my letter from Cumbria police, I saw I had the option of going on a speed awareness course. Not only would I avoid the three points but the cost of the course was fifteen pounds cheaper than the fine. It seemed like a good deal and, also, maybe I did need to be more aware of my speed, so I signed up.

The course was at 1pm, this afternoon, although we were told to arrive 20 minutes beforehand. Decades of fighting with my natural shyness has battered it in to a form of sociopathy that manifests itself in rooms full of strangers with whom I have to interact. It also makes me grumpy so I sat with my nose in my book whilst becoming increasingly irritated by the fact that no one came to register us until ten to.

Once the course actually began, I had no choice but to put my book away and grudgingly interact, at which point, as usual, I found that, actually, these strangers were a perfectly normal bunch of people, who also had their own coping mechanisms for dealing with new people and some of whom were rather nice. 

The course itself wasn't too bad. I learnt that there are two types of mobility scooter, one of which, the GT, is allowed on all roads except motorways, despite its maximum speed of eight miles an hour, and also that a dual carriageway is not a road with two lanes on each direction but is in fact is any road with a central reservation. Thus you can have a single lane dual carriageway. 

That's not a lot of interesting facts for four hours of presentation, to be honest, and much as I hate being bored and was in that state most of the time, I am actually glad that I went along. The notion of taking control of one's own time and space appealed to me.

Having spent my late teens indulging in a regular diet of John Irving novels, my subconscious has a firm belief that irony is an as yet unidentified force of nature and consequently I was convinced I would have a speed related accident on the way back to Kirkby Lonsdale but, happily, I arrived home without incident. 

(Today's photo is from outside the Holiday Inn in Lancaster where the course was held.)