Friday 29th June, 2012

You may not have noticed it, but I have been a little under the weather this week. I have had a rather nasty cold. More to the point though the effect of this is that it has been almost a week since I last had a glass of wine. This is virtually unprecedented for me. I read somewhere that a Greek philosopher, Plato or Socrates - perhaps you can help me out here - advocated regular and substantial wine consumption for men upon reaching the age of 40 to ward off the grumpiness of middle age. He wasn't wrong. If I am a little stressy at the moment though it is most likely for another reason, truth be told. The fact is I now have not one, but two children learning to drive. I have told you before about Hen's previous efforts. She took her test about a year and a half ago, after I had spent roughly £1,000 on driving lessons for her. Much to my relief and, I might add, the general safety of the roads in Suffolk, she failed. As she blithely explained she would almost have passed given she committed 13 minor errors, only two more than the permitted number. The problem, she magnanimously conceded, was the red light she had run and the fact that the instructor had had to apply the emergency brakes to avoid their crashing into the back of a white van. So much time has elapsed since her last attempt that she is now required to re-sit her theory test so we are all ok for a while yet. However second daughter Jimmy is an altogether different proposition. She has passed her theory test, spent hours driving a clapped out Jeep around a field perfecting her gear shifting, a basic skill which eludes Hen, and has had a series of lessons in Rugby and around Bury St Edmunds. Her test is scheduled for 18th July at 2.30pm. I am a worried man. She might just pass. Which brings me to an email I received from my brother yesterday, who was concerned by the quote he had received to insure his son, who has passed his US driving test, to drive in the UK this summer: From: "Jamie Sandison" Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2012 13:10:52 +0100 To: