POST by RENZ: Driving Miss Lorenzy

Relatives from both sides of the family have been visiting ever since Francesca’s birthday. All four grandparents, my cousins, and my aunt and uncles have been here. I have not seen most of them for about five years so I was really excited.

Nanny, (my dad’s mum) thought that it would be a good idea for my sister and I to learn how to drive. So she took us out in our little grey car that is all bashed up and old but I love that car.

First up was Fran and she already knew how to drive a little, so it was not too hard for her. But for me, I had only driven whilst I was sat on my parents lap and used the steering wheel to turn. Plus, our grey car has a gear stick so I also had to learn how to use all the gears.

I managed to go down the road ok but I stalled a lot of times. When I went to turn around at the end of the road, I was reversing then going forward, reversing, forward, backwards, stall, forward. It took me a while to do it.

It took a lot of patience from me and from my grandmother. Also, it did not help when my sister was in the back randomly yelling things like “Watch out there’s a dog!” or “Speed bump!” and many other things like that.

When we got back to the house, my grandmother suggested that Sezni, my younger brother, should also start learning how to drive. Fran got out of the car and went inside, but I stayed because I wanted to see how my little brother would do.

When he got into the driver’s seat you could tell that he was really nervous. Nanny started talking to him very calmly and he followed her instructions very well. When we were going to go into the drive way to our house my nanny said to Sezni “I think Lorenzy should drive into the driveway, ok Sez? So just brake.”

His reply was “ok nanny” but instead of hitting the brakes, he put his foot on the accelerator and then nanny said a bit louder “No Sezni, on the brakes! That was the accelerator. Now put your foot on the BRAKE.”

He was starting to give up so he just slammed his foot on the accelerator thinking that it was the brake but he was in reverse so we went flying back and right as we hit our wall, Nanny pulled the handbrake. When the car had stopped, we all started laughing really hard, but then I realized that Sezni was not laughing and was nearly in tears. I tried to stop laughing so that he wouldn’t feel so bad but I just couldn’t.

Sezni started saying between sobs that he sucked and that he was stupid because we crashed and we were trying to calm him down. After he stopped crying and felt a little better I changed place with him and drove into the driveway.