First Driving Lesson

On Sunday afternoon, I had my first driving lesson. I was terrified before hand but soon got over that...

It was a 2 hour lesson, but between getting to a quiet area - yes you can all rest easy, I am not being unleashes on the roads of Southampton just yet - and Les (Instructor) explaining all the controls to me in the end I only got 30 mins of actual driving.

We went to an industrial estate, which was fairly quiet, but on the first corner I had to take a very large truck was taking it in the opposite direction. Did I nearly Kack myslef? Did I what?

Generally I was ok - nervous and slow - but ok. The funniest bit was towards the end of the lesson. I was changing gears (from first to second) for the first time. I moved off and then did the gear change, then:
[Hilary - in a very scared voice]: Can we stop now?
[Instructor]: Yes, if you want to.
[Hilary]: [Slams on breaks like an elephant, forgetting all procedure]
[Instructor]: Why did you want to stop?
[Hilary]: We were going way too fast?
[Instructor]: You were doing less than 10mph!

HA! God help any person who has to drive behind me in the near future. Hopefully I will learn to cope with the high speeds a learner driver experiences. But I had fun and can't wait fo rnext week....

Bright Lights, Big City...

Kind of a last minute thing, we decided to got to London on Sunday morning. We just wanted a day out, a change from the norm, and decided we would go to see Westminster Abbey. Having passed by before I know how impressive Westminster is, the place is huge! Steeped in history and all that. It was then very disappointing to find Westminster Abbey closed to the public on a Sunday. I mean, if we'd thought about it it would have made snese, what with it still being in use for Sunday services. We quickly got over our disappointment, we were in London, there's loads todo. Jamie decided we should go to Carnaby Street, I had no arguments...
 
Of course, completely ignoring the route on the GPS device in my handbag, we got lost on our way to Carnaby Street. We ended up walking down the Strand and then ended up in Covent Garden. It was acutally, bustling with people, activity, lots of buskers. There we had some extremely lovely Cornish pasties (these are the best things ever made, my God, I love them).
 
Leaving Convent Garden and heading in no particular direction we found ourselves in Leicester Square, where there was alot of activity. Lots of screaming teenagers and some fireworks drew our attention to the scene on the right. It turned out we had just stumbled onto the stars arriving for the UK Premier of Thunderbirds. I have always been drawn to a bit of celebrity spotting, and was disappointed to at first discover some kids who I'd never seen before. these ar ehte nobodies who fill the childrens role sin the movie. Sophia Myles was there in a dress that almost wasn't, swanning around her pink Ford which is suppoed to remind us of the Rolls Royce that was used in the puppet show of the '60s.
 
However, I felt very left out when Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker) turned up and I was the only person getting excited. I think I was the only person in the crowd old enough to know who he was. How embarrassing!!!
But then Sir Ben Kingsley turned up and this just made my day. He could talk the hind legs off a donkey, cos he gave longer interviews than anyone else. he was the last of the important people to go into the cinmea, and before he departed he even signed autographs, for the young upstarts who wouldn't remember or even have noticed some of his fantastic performances which include Ghandi, Schindler's List and House of Sand and Fog.
 
I got no autographs but there are photos available here. You may have to squint to work out who they famous people are, but they're there.
 
We did eventually make it to Carnaby Street, via a pitstop for Starbucks :-) I was chuffed with my day in London - I love celebrity spotting.

Exciting Times

I don't want anyone to get too excited but the paperback version of Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix is being released tomorrow.

Most of you have probably already read this. I've always been a very slow starter. But my plan for the weekend is to get a haircut (desperately needed), purchase Harry Potter, find a seat in the High Street Cafe and stay there drinking cappuccino and reading my new book :-)

I made this...

Yes, I made this. And before anyone goes and asks any stupid questions, it's a donkey and I crocheted him. His name is Onkey (yes, that's Onkey the Donkey :-). Cute?
Click on the picture for a link to more Onkey photos - there are also photos of some horses we took when in the New Forest the other week.

You would think I made him for a child, you know like a niece or nephew... No, Onkey belongs to Jamie, who is just a big child at heart.

So this is the sort of thing I do in the evening. It's like going back in time in our house. There's no TV, just me in a corner crocheting, and Jamie in another corner reading. (When he's coding it doesn't look much like olden times, cos he's got a laptop in front of him and he swears loudly - alot.) I kinda like it, though. We've gotten used to life without a TV and I don't know how we ever got anything done when we had one. We do spend many evenings in the cinema though, weh ave seen all recent releases - maybe we're not coping that well wihtout a TV ;-)