Monday Morning Mayhem

So, I've found the car. A bashed up Scenic. In Paris is seems that your new car doesn't stay new-looking for very long!!! 

It's Monday morning, and my aim is to survive the school run. Everyone piles into the car, and I attempt to turn it on and reverse it out of the garage. Suddenly a deafening sound fills the car up as I'm reversing. I panic, hit the breaks and stall the car. Have I broken it?? 

'C'est normal' says Margot. It transpires that it's only the aerial on the top of the car being dragged along the garage door panels above us. Panic over. Once outside in the daylight, I put on the handbrake which is much lighter than my car at home. It makes me realise just HOW BROKEN my Fiat's handbrake is! I leave the car running, halfway out onto a small one-way street. I leap out the car to shut the garage door and clamber back into the big, spacious family van. Check 1. Driving on the right hand side. This I'm pretty fine with. It's nothing new, as I've practiced driving in Spain. However, be prepared for French driving. This is a completely different matter. During my first day of French-driving, I am hooted at more times than my combined 'hoots' in England. The moment the light changes to green and you don't pull off instantly - BEEP. If you stall -HOOT. If you drive to slow - HONK. If you're in the way - TOOT. If you are lost - BEEP BEEP HONK HONK TOOT TOOT. Check 2. Bigger car. This is also very unnerving, as the Scenic is probably double the size of my petite Fiat Seicento. The French roads are tiny, the corners are sharp and it's stop-and-go all the time. I'm not surprised that half the car boot is bashed in! Check 3. Probably nearly ALL French roads are one-way. So as a new driver, when you get lost all the time, it's near-damn impossible to backtrack yourself to where you were before you got lost. 

I'm driving the Scenic. I feel like I'm driving a LORRY. The steering wheel is huge, and feels very... horizontal to me. It's more 'facing up' than facing at me. The gear stick feels a mile away, and Renault have put a silly armrest right by my right elbow, so it becomes a mission to reach down to the gutters to pull up the handbrake. 

Marie's singing in the back, Margot's reading aloud English phrases for her 'controle' (which I later discover is a 'test'), Juliette is texting, and I have an annoying dog leaping around the car and attempting to climb onto my lap. The car is full of leaves, litter and Barbie Dolls, but nothing useful like A MAP. Fortunately I have learnt from the mistake I made in my GCSE French paper, when I ticked 'toute-droit' as being turn 'right', so when we come to a cross roads I ask Julette for directions. Caroline has also put the school on the GPS (Sat Nav), which actually seems to be working for me, until suddenly I hear the word 'arrivez', and I know that I haven't arrived. I later discover that this 'gps' has a habit of 'ditching' you just before your destination...  Juliette directs me to their schools, and then it is up to me to find my way back. I can't stop, I don't have a map, and the journey I have just taken is blocked with no-entry signs. It all seems a blur. There are Pharmacies everywhere, and traffic lights at every metre. 


I am still amazed at how I ever managed to find my way back home, unscathed, and the car all in one piece!