My brave and wonderful mother has never owned a car, she has never driven in a car alone, never happily tooted the horn by herself and now she believes its time...
My mum recently joined a Driving Academy that takes you through all the steps - from attending classes on helping her study for her learners licence, puting her through dummy tests, setting up dates for her to write the actual test, daily driving lessons, dummy driving tests and finally getting her drivers licence. She pays a once off fee and they help you do everything.
In the process of attending the Driving Academy, my mum has become quite the celebrity at the Academy. At 65 years old she's obviously the oldest student there and all her young peers call her "Granny". She doesn't mind this at all, in fact I think she secretly loves the attention and special treatment she gets.
"Granny" always gets to go first in the queue, gets the good seats in class and gets the best driver instructors. Being Granny has its advantages....my mum ain't no dummy...heehee
So, my mum recently got 86% and 97% for her dummy learners licence tests and was super nervous and anxious about doing the actual test - the real deal. Clearly she had nothing to be nervous about because she spent every spare moment with her nose in her books - studying her road signs, road markings, controls and general rules of the road.
Its been 40 years since she's studied ANYTHING so you can imagine how nervous she was taking her first test in 4 decades!
Great News! She passed!
When she got back to the Academy with her Certificate to tell everyone the good news, they all cheered for her and put her photograph up on the Academy's "Hall of Fame". My mum couldn't be more chuffed and empowered.
I'm so proud of her taking the bull by the horns at this age and doing something that her heart has told her to do for many years. This is another step towards her independence. I can just imagine my mum's petite size 6, five foot frame in the drivers seat, peering over the steering wheel, a wee smirk on her face, tooting her OWN horn. How awesome will that be!
I'll keep you posted on her progess with her Driver's Test which should be in a few months time.