Driving Ms Daisy...

Sweet Thang was meant to go and get a Learners Permit this morning. She had booked in to do the test and everything.

Now this is great news. I myself was a late bloomer when it came to learning to drive and only got my licence in my mid-thirties, because I got a job that said 'must have current drivers license' in the criteria. Luckily no-one actually asked about that until after I had started the job and had been rushing through those lessons. But once I got a license it was like 'hello - what have I been waiting for???' and I haven't stopped driving ever since.

I also have many other friends who were late starters in the motorist stakes for whatever reasons. In Sweet Thang's case, she has been an inner city girl for a long time, uses public transport because it is more environmentally friendly and rides her bike quite a lot, plus despite the whinging of various sections of the community Melbourne has one of the best public transport systems of any Australia city. I mean we have trams!!!

So when I met Sweet Thang and we started going out it was the most natural thing in the world to just say, 'hey no problem' whenever she needed a lift somewhere, or 'hey I'll just drop by and pick you up' if we were heading somewhere. However two years later and we are living together in the burbs and it is a major pain to have to always both go to the shops to get a few things, or have to plan my weekend around getting her to a hair appointment, or whatever.

It isn't major relationship counselling stuff, but it is just a bit annoying and niggling... I have dropped the ocasional hint about how she would love the independence and how it would make such a huge difference in her life etc etc. Not enough to enough to qualify as nagging, but what I would like to see as 'positive encouragement', but she has been immune to my entreaties and blandishments.

Until now.

She ended up staying on in Melbourne for a week on her own prior to Christmas while I was in Brisbane swanning around, having barbies with mates, looking for the world's hottest burger etc. Originally her work had said that she would be working up until Christmas Eve and she had made plans etc based on that, bought her plane ticket and was super organised. However about three weeks before Christmas they changed their minds and told everyone that the office would be closed from 20 December until 12 January as a 'cost-cutting measure'. So all of her plans went out the window and it was way too expensive to change her flight arrangements with such short notice because in Australia the flights that week before Christmas are just insane.

So she ended up staying at home for a week, feeling stuck in Essendon, with a perfectly good car just sitting outside unused. So she decided that it was time to make a change and go and get a license. Of course it is always better when someone makes a decision themselves, so it has all worke dout for the best.

However last night we hit a big snag. We spent the evening turning the house upside down looking for her passport (she is Canadian), which seems to have gone walkabout. The annoying thing is we are positive that it is somewhere in the house but we just can't find it anywhere...

So no ID, no drivers test!

So I am going to be continuing my limosine duties for a while longer.