It is deeply ironic that, only in my last retirement blog, I wrote about a possible fear of post lockdown activities like driving for example. And the very next day while driving the Defender(see above safely in the drive) for the first time in many weeks (I even had to recharge the battery and having done so I thought I’d better take it out) I drove it into a ditch and got stuck. Who says God or whoever it is, hasn’t got a sense of humour? We were only looking for a place to walk the doggies and we didn’t even find that.
Of course the whole sad episode could have been some sort of retribution for going over to our daughter’s (about ten miles away) to modestly celebrate mother’s day but that seems a bit harsh. I hope that any other small pandemic transgressions are not so severely treated if this was a punitive response from whoever doles out these things.
This perspective apart I would say it was all entirely my own fault. I’d quite forgotten you were supposed to turn round to see where you’re going, when you’re reversing. I’ve always had a bit of difficulty with this turning round business on account of pains in my back / neck. But this incident took it to a new level.
So I not only ended up in a ditch I hadn’t seen, which wouldn’t have been a problem as such for the sturdy Land Rover, (I’ve done worse to it), but the chassis got stuck on the raised concrete abutment (is that a word) of the bridge that crossed the ditch that I’d reversed into without looking. It was quite remarkable just how stuck I was. Well and truly kippered.
We would have been there now had a kindly, passing motorist not stopped and pulled me out with his pick-up truck and a tow rope. Wouldn’t take any money for it either. I was immensely grateful and more than a little embarrassed. All I could think of, in the positive column at this point, was that this was karma for when I had performed the same service for a guy who got his car stuck on the beach on our last visit to Ireland. What goes around etc.
Aware that my lack of driving might make for a challenge on my first time out, I had driven very carefully up to that point even though the rest of the world seemed to be a) all out for a drive at the same time as me, and I’m sure there weren’t this many people in the world before all this and b) they were driving very fast. Was it always like this or is it me? Yes, of course, it’s me. I can only hope that my anxiety about all the other aspects of post lockdown activities don’t prove me as right as this has.
Other than taking the dogs for local walks in the van (just to ensure the van still felt wanted, needed even), this was the first time I had been out driving in this second lockdown period. So, in this sense, it followed my good advice to myself in the last retirement blog, of going slowly (incrementally was the term used) while coming out of lockdown. But, as is so often the case, this good advice hadn’t helped one bloody bit. I’d gone slow but still ended up in the bloody shit, sorry I mean ditch.
The rest of my advice to self from the tame psychiatrist was something along the lines of think positive thoughts or visualise positive scenarios. In this case I visualised a man with a tow rope coming along and pulling me out of the ditch. Hey that worked. As for the CBT bit there’s, among other tactics, the process of positive reframing.
This would look something like – I’m glad I got stuck in the ditch because it gave me the opportunity of seeing my fellow human beings in a positive light when I might have been inclined, after months of separation, to think the world was full of tossers. No indeed, good Samaritans still flourish out there.
So with Oscar Wilde’s famous advice ringing in my ears, I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself. I moved on with my retirement life. How very true Oscar your thoughts were then and still are today.