Skipton

I loved driving pretty much from the get-go. I started learning in May 1983, prompted by a slightly older girlfriend who could already drive. By September, I felt ready to take my test and I endured three frustrating months waiting for a slot.

Once I'd passed, I would take any opportunity to drive, and I remember my mum's frustration at my "joy driving" because, for example, she'd ring my Nan, who lived ten minutes away, to see where I was only to find I'd left an hour before. But I took such pleasure in simply driving around and, now, nearly forty years later, I still do.

Consequently, I was saddened that Dan didn't enjoy driving when he started, and saw his lessons as something of a trial. But it occurred to me that, as with his guitar lessons, what he really needed was the time to practise. So, since we bought him a car a few months ago, he and I have been out two or three times a week, and now I can see that he has begun to genuinely enjoy it.

Since he broke up from school for Christmas, yesterday, I decided to take the morning off so that he could drive us across to Skipton for breakfast. It's a lovely drive, actually, but with a couple of challenges for the learner driver: the narrow bridge just beyond Coniston Cold, for example, and the large roundabout just before Skipton.

And he did really well; he was relaxed and chatty all the way, and after a quick walk around Skipton, we found somewhere to have breakfast. 

I took this photo on our pre-breakfast walk. It's not actually of the Leeds-Liverpool canal, which runs right through Skipton, but rather it is the 'Springs Branch "opened in 1797 and was built for Lord Thanet, who lived in Skipton Castle and owned the limestone quarries served by the branch. Stone was brought from the quarries by a tramroad to be loaded into boats for the journey down to Leeds."

And we had surprising news, this evening: Izzy, whom I saw on Wednesday morning, had a C19 test yesterday before coming up to visit us today, but it was positive. So, obviously she couldn't come, after all, and we spent a lot of the evening pondering by text just how she could have caught it - she has been super cautious - and, more importantly, wondering how she could have a tolerable Christmas.

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-13.4 kgs
Reading: 'Troubled Blood' by Robert Galbraith