No entry

One of the things I’ve noticed since moving to the countryside is the lack of roads that are wide enough to let two cars pass. They are few and far between let me tell you!

I’ve been driving for years and call me strange, but most of my driving has been done in a forwards direction. I haven’t had the need to do much reversing, apart from parking or maybe backing up a little bit in a road, so my reversing experience is minimal. But around here half of your driving seems to be done in a backwards direction.

I presume driving lessons in the countryside must dedicate a good half of the time teaching you to drive in reverse for miles. The only reversing I had to do on my test was to reverse around a corner. To now be faced with having to drive in reverse for a mile or two (slight exaggeration) to let a tractor come past is terrifying!

Tractors are in abundance around where we live. In fact the only traffic that goes past our house are tractors or other cool farming vehicles. (I’ll share my love of tractors some other time).

There is a particular lane near our house that Mr G has BANNED me from driving down on my own. It’s a tiny, twisty-turny (technical road term) lane that for most of it is only just wide enough for one car. The useful little pull-in areas in the hedgerows are minimal so if you come face to face with a tractor or indeed just another normal sized car you have to reverse a fair old way to let it pass.

If I were to come face to face with a tractor (after getting over my initial excitement) I’d just have to sit there gripping my steering wheel and try to out-stare the farmer in the vain hope he would reverse his (lovely) tractor. Obviously there are some risks with this strategy, so this is why Mr G has banned me from driving down that particular narrow lane when I’m on my own. I’ve agreed to steer clear of this lane, even though it means I have to drive further to get to some places. But even I realise that if I got stuck I couldn’t just sit there and shout “Geeeeeeeeeeeeee” and hope he comes running with a pint glass and a piece of card to get rid of the tractor!