4th February 2010
Sitting at one of the university computers in the physics department, I was feeling restless. I had just started a new university term and it seemed that my academic focus was nowhere to be found. In just over an hour I was due to pick my way through the St. Andrews streets and join a statistics class on the other side of town. I sighed as I remembered how tedious I’d found these classes in the past and knowing I had yet another to get through left me feeling very bored.
This restlessness isn’t new. The feeling comes and goes, each new bout ever familiar but stronger than the last. The longer I’ve been a student, the more I’ve noticed a pattern to my distracted self during the beginning of a new term at university. It’s taken some time to realise but I always struggle most in February. February sits halfway through the academic year, so it seems strange that I struggle to concentrate on my studies at this time. February is the start of the second term in the academic year and this brings new classes, different classmates and fresh deadlines just as the start of the academic year in September does, but unlike the end of summer, in the heart of February I always seem to be distracted.
Pitlochry, Connel, Balquhidder, Acharacle, Jedburgh, Glenshee, Dervaig – these are the many places that Chris & I have visited in many Januarys gone by. Each January, to celebrate another year of being together, my partner Chris & I pack a few battered old suitcases and head off for the wild landscapes of Scotland. Enjoying a combination of an isolated cottage rented for the week and each other’s company, our trips have found us climbing up the rugged Scottish mountains, exploring crumbling castle ruins and driving on some of Scotland’s most challenging and scenic roads. We often rent a log cabin or an old farmhouse, preferably with a log fire to warm us after long days out in the January cold. These rural adventures are full of fond memories and entertaining stories. I return from them refreshed and inspired with a heightened sense of what matters and what doesn’t.
Here lies my problem in February. For a brief time each January, I touch upon a lifestyle that feels more real, more grounded and free from the clutter of modern society. For one week in January, I live within the kind of landscape that inspires me. The biology that I love to study is all around and I feel truly happy to be amongst it. Going back to paved streets, crowded buses and monotonous statistics classes just doesn’t appeal once I’ve been in the highlands again and this February, like others before, was no exception. In daydreams, I was drifting back to Mull’s wilderness and the twisting roads that lie alongside tumbling cliffs (see previous article This Island Stole My Heart). For the time being, I just wasn’t interested in being back in a classroom, learning to analyse reams of soulless data.
To further add to my distraction, the first drive I’d had with Henry back in November was still playing in my mind (see previous article Driver of the Day). I could remember how satisfied I’d felt driving Henry over what was effectively just flat tarmac but we’d still got no further forward with me being able to get insurance as a provisional driver. To experience real roads and to be allowed to drive Henry properly, I was going to need a full driving license.
I have wanted to drive for so long. I almost took my first few driving lessons when I was seventeen. I was a media student in college at the time. I had little money and I knew hardly a thing about the practical side of buying, owning and using a car. However, I somehow had a clear impression of how liberating being able to drive must be. The process of working together with a car to get somewhere almost felt like a fond memory, like I’d done it before. I never had but at times it really felt like I knew what was great about driving before I’d even done it. Throughout my college course, despite many other interests, much of my written journalism pieces revolved around the joys of driving. Upon reading and marking my work, my lecturers never asked if I actually had a driving license and I never bothered to tell them that the narration was coming only from imaginary travels. I pictured with ease the route along familiar Scottish roads, I was able to visualize the lining up of apex to apex and I could imagine making satisfactory progression through the gearbox. For some reason, a simple union of car and driver working together was a very appealing thought to me and this showed up repeatedly as I wrote my way through my media studies.
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I’ve loved cars for as long as I can remember. Classic car magazines have replaced the kid’s books but I’m essentially doing the same thing, looking at the pretty pictures and learning a nugget of information or two about the good-looking cars. |
My application for a provisional license didn’t make it to the DVLA until February 2010 (I’m 25 by this time) as halfway through my media course, I was diagnosed with insulin-dependant diabetes – one of the many medical conditions known to interfere with the ability to drive unless under strict control. It took years for me to understand and gain control of my diabetes and all the while my driving dream stood on hold. I tried to not let it bother me and for the majority of the time I was able to not think about it too much. I did however find our trips away in January hard as this was when we would tend to drive on some really interesting roads. It was always then that I found being in the passenger seat frustrating and I would feel restless.
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This postcard is one of my main inspirations for buying a classic car as a young adult. From the moment I saw this postcard I wanted to be the one driving the white Volvo Amazon seen in the centre, passing by the mountains. This postcard accompanied me on the train when I travelled down to Alvechurch to view Henry for the first time – see previous article Amongst a Huddle of Vintage. |
It is now seven years later. I’m a student with little money, not much knowledge on using a car and still without a license. It seems that in some aspects of life, not much has changed. However, I now have a car that I adore. I have Henry and I have that old restlessness inside. Now is the time to discover how liberating driving really is and to work towards having those Highland adventures for real in my Standard 8.
I tap the keyboard in front of me and the computer wakes up from the snooze mode it’s slipped into whilst I’ve been thinking. I do a quick online search for driving instructors in Fife. With only twenty minutes left until I have to head across town for the dreaded class, narrowing down potential instructors is done with unusual efficiency. The website I’m on has a written statement and a telephone number for each instructor listed. I choose to contact Lynda, a female instructor who is resident in nearby Cardenden. Lynda’s statement is humble and straightforward. She teaches in a metallic-green Mazda 2.
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| I’m drawn to the Mazda’s fun look |
I‘m drawn to Lynda’s fun-looking car and the approachability of her statement. I send Lynda an e-mail. I feel a flutter of excitement replacing the old restlessness and I don’t feel so bad as I lift my bag and head through the streets to learn more about statistics.
See this Henry & I feature on the Standard Motor Club website:
(Link to be posted shortly!)
See the photographs which accompany this Henry & I article:
Living in Scotland as a Standard car owner? There is a local group for Standard car owners & Standard car enthusiasts in Scotland. See this page for more info:
