“As all of my main competitions have finished, I have had more time to concentrate on the things I needed to do. For example, I have just started with a personal trainer in the gym twice a week. James has the unenviable task of whipping me into shape before next year when I will hopefully be taking Wizard (Wurlizer) out at Grand Prix.

Simon says

However, my main task has been to pass my lorry test so the past couple of weeks have been devoted to this. Last week I had two more lessons in my 17 tonne lorry as I hadn’t driven it for a couple of months and I had to get out of car mode! Thankfully, I hadn’t forgotten how to drive it and it didn’t take long before I was cruising around again. I then had the test on Thursday 7^th October and I had the same examiner as my first test, Simon. My instructor said to me that I was more than capable of passing as long as I drove to the best of my ability. Unfortunately for me, I managed to wind myself up to the extent that I had loads of silly mistakes, and I knew I had failed before the test had even finished. But the examiner was lovely and told me that I could drive it but I had got so wound up and made mistakes that he had to fail me - he said to get back as soon as possible for another test though. You can imagine how disappointed I was and very annoyed with myself, especially as it meant I had to go through it all again!

A lucky break

I then had some more bad news as there were no tests available for about a month, so I would have to wait around again. Luckily for me, however, Bypass driver training, where I learnt, are very efficient and managed to get me a cancellation on 16^th October. This suited me perfectly and I only had a few days notice so I couldn’t wind myself up too much! I went into this test with the attitude of what will be will be and it didn’t matter what happened because the worst outcome was that I would fail! This meant that I managed to keep myself fairly relaxed; well, relaxed enough so that I didn’t want to cry and be sick!

And so to drive...

I had a different examiner this time but the examiner I had had the previous two times was also at the test centre and he wished me luck and told me to stay calm and I would be fine. I almost enjoyed the drive this time and I was fairly confident I hadn’t done anything really silly, although I still did have a few small mistakes. Thankfully, I passed this time and, as I’m sure you can imagine, I was very, very relieved.

...or maybe not

My joy was short lived, however, as we have since found out that I can’t yet legally drive our lorry as I am under 21 so I need to do the CPC (certificate of professional competence) first. Now I have to do another theory test and another practical test, although, mercifully, there is no more driving involved, just another visit to the test centre! Nevertheless, I have done the hardest part now so the rest should be much easier."