Monday, January 21, 2008

Where are we now?

I hired a dual-control car from Arnold Clark in Paisley yesterday, accompanied by the very kind Michael as my "responsible, grown-up person with a real driving licence". Although the Byzantine traffic systems of Paisley probably hold few fears for a man who has driven through Athens at rush hour.

This is just as well, as immediately after leaving the hire-place I turned left instead of right and set us on a - seemingly inexorable - path towards either the dual carriageway to Greenock, or the motorway to Glasgow. Neither of which we fancied. However we managed to extricate ourselves by means of a tiny roundabout at the end of a side road that seemed to have been put there for that very purpose. Handy.

As we headed back towards the town centre, I worried that I couldn't remember what key I was in. After being informed that I was probably driving in C# minor (and definitely in third gear) things were going quite well until I did the whole left instead of right thing again and ended up heading towards Barrhead. I don't like Barrhead. It's difficult and involves something called "The Hurlet" which sounds alarming before you even get to it.

Luckily, by dint of actually executing a right turn for a change, Barrhead was successfully averted, and were were able to carry on getting lost for a bit before I managed to get us back on time by way of a three-point turn. And there are still a couple of strands of Michael's hair the same colour as when we started...;-)

6 comments:

Unknown said...

...presumably those were the strands that were grey already ;-)

Alcluith said...

He's very brave! ;-)

Anonymous said...

No bravery required, I promise you! Just a free tour of the sights of Paisley...

Alcluith said...

Most folk would think you'd need bravery for that alone! :-)

Lisa said...

My goodness. Maybe we should through me into the mix and see what happens with the turns. Best to wait until I have a roaring case of jet lag so that there is no hope of clear thinking.

Alcluith said...

An excellent plan! When will you next be over? ;-)