Jessica's passed her driving test

My daughter Jessica has passed her driving test.

Thank God.  It’s bad enough living with various daughters in the throes of GCSE’s and AS levels, to say nothing of first year University exams (although Elspeth, the student in question has confined her fits of the wobblies to the other end of a telephone from Glasgow) without the added strain of a driving test-ee muttering stopping distances at you.  Not only that, but there’s been the additional odd white-knuckle moment as I’ve sat in the car with her and practiced roundabouts.  She’s pretty good, actually, and it could all be so much worse.  White Van men, taxi drivers, and teenage boys with sound systems as big as the engine have to be the scariest drivers with elderly men in hats a close second.  Driving, as a fine art, obviously goes back further than you’d think. The first recorded road-hog in history crops up in the Bible;  “The driving is like the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi; for he driveth furiously,” says the book of Chronicles, but it doesn’t say if Jehu had a sound-system or wore a hat.   Maybe he had a party of harpists and tambourine-bashers in the back playing Heavy Psalms.  Rock of Ages, perhaps?

Anyway, there’s now another car parked outside the Gordon-Smith household, a neat little silver Ford Fiesta, paid for, taxed, insured, complete with radio and a dinky little key to turn off the alarm. It’s been admired, cooed over and exhibited to anyone showing the remotest interest.  Result.

The Ford Fiesta, however, wasn’t the first thing on my mind during the thunderstorm that enlivened Manchester during the week.  Instead the dog, Lucky, occupied my thoughts completely.  I’ve mentioned Lucky before.  He’s a Heinz 57 of a dog, with Staffordshire Bull Terrier predominating and wormed his way into my affections when I saw him in the dog rescue home by having an ingratiating manner and three legs.  A three legged dog called Lucky?  Wow.

Lucky doesn’t like thunderstorms.  Goodness knows what’s going on between the animal’s ears, but it’s as if the rest of the house doesn’t know there’s a thunderstorm in progress and he thinks we ought to be aware.  So, come four o’clock in the morning or thereabouts, I heard a wuff, wuff, WUFF!

It’s not an aggressive Wuff.  It’s not a wuff that says, “I say, people, there’s a bloke with a black mask and a bag marked “Swag” just come through the window,” wuff.  It’s a I-don’t-like-it Wuff.  It’s a would-you-mind-coming-and-sorting-this-out-for-me? wuff.  It’s a polite sort of Wuff, if you know what I mean and he can keep it up for hours.  I lay in bed, as you do, trying to convince myself it would all go away eventually.  Beside me, the partner of my joys and sorrows slumbered on. Roll of thunder:  wuff, wuff, WUFF!  It’ll stop soon.  Roll of thunder:  wuff, wuff, WUFF!  It has to stop soon. Roll of thunder:  wuff, wuff, WUFF!  It really, really, has to stop soon. Roll of thunder:  wuff, wuff, WUFF!  Oh, sod it, the damn dog’s not going to shut up unless I accept his invitation to do something about it.  Now, before anyone thinks I have a Canute-type complex and believe one word from me will quell storms, no I don’t, but I can stress at a dog with the best of them.  So, up I got, went downstairs, pointed out to Lucky the error of his ways, and, with the rain hammering down on the conservatory roof, held up as examples Snooker the cat (asleep) Arthur the cat (aloof and superior) Minou, the small cat, (puzzled at this four o’clock excursion and hopeful of food) and, most tellingly, Barney the dog, unruffled by thunder. Wuff? suggested Lucky as I made for bed once more.  Don’t try it, I said cuttingly and the animal fell silent.

Thank God for that, I thought, as I snuggled between the sheets once more.  The rain continued to hammer, the thunder to roll, but the dog remained silent.  And then a car alarm went off.  Well, at all events it was nothing to do with me. Our car, I thought smugly, drifting off, hasn’t got an alarm.  And then the hideous truth smote me.  Jessica’s passed her driving test. There’s a neat little silver Ford Fiesta parked outside...