I recently had to go to someones house to collect a wooden stand which they had made and wouldn't fit in their car. We are lucky enough to own an estate (station wagon!) and so I volunteered to get it and was given a scrap of paper with the guys address on it.
Now, I was feeling in a very brave mood that day and decided to venture out without much idea of where I was going - after all, he only lived about 5 miles from me so how hard could it be to find his house? Of course, I did have a sat nav in the glove compartment of the car but I was soon to find out that this wasn't too much use when driving along in heavy traffic with no way to pull over....
Anyway, not being completely stupid, I had checked the map on my phone before I'd left the house and I actually had quite a good idea of where I was going before I set out. In fact, I had actually set the phone to give me directions, but I started to disbelieve it quite quickly, when it kept asking me to turn left when I knew that was going to take me somewhere else entirely from where I wanted to be. I've heard those stories about sat navs, the ones where you end up in the river or something and that wasn't going to be me - no siree!
I guess, after a little while, of the phone saying turn left and me realising that actually 5 miles from my house may as well be 105 miles for all the familiarity of the area that I had, I thought that I maybe should admit defeat, stop the car and either ask for directions or turn on the real Tom Tom who (so far) has never let me down. I pulled into a side road, only to notice that it was Heather Street and Clover Street was directly opposite. Now I took notice of this, because I was looking for Daffodil street and I was starting to notice some kind of a flower trend going on here and much like Reggie Perrin's poets estate it seemed that I was certainly in the vicinity. I pulled back out of the junction, headed on up the road and there it was, the street I was looking for. I found the house number, spotted some timber in the front yard (which seemed promising given what I was collecting) and knocked on the door.
It was at this point that the trip started to get rather bizarre as a small child (SC) answered the door, rather than the 6ft something chap that I was expecting and a strange conversation ensued:
Me: "Is your dad in?"
SC: "No"
Me: "Are you sure?"
SC: "Yes.."
Me: "Oh, I'm supposed to meet him. Are you sure you are sure?"
SC: (Looks at me as if I am stupid and nods)
Me: (Thinking maybe I made a mistake - after all, I was supposed to meet the guy) "Um,is his name Mark?"
SC: "No"
Me: "Are you sure?" (don't ask me why I asked this, thinking back it was a a stupid thingto say!)
SC: "Yes" (again looking at me as if I am stupid)
He then turned on his heel and shut the door in my face - presumably having decided that I was actually a loony...
I started to head back to the car but was stopped by the sound of a woman's voice behind me - it sounded cross, in the way that only a mother who feels her child is being terrorised, can sound. I turned slowly, expecting the worst...as she demanded to know what I wanted. I started to explain and almost immediately was struck by a thought...
....I bashed my forehead with the heel of my hand...
"B*gger" This is Buttercup Street, isn't it? I wanted Daffodil!"
If you can slink, getting into a car, I did it and headed off round the corner to find Daffodil Street and Mark - who was there, as arranged.
Some time later at home, I told hubby the story of my trip and he howled with laughter. He made the point though that my head seems to be wired up in a fairly wonky fashion. After all, he said, it's not like there was a picture on the street sign to show that they were both yellow flowers - you just knew they were both yellow and so your brain made the connection without even seeing the wording on the sign - that's just weird that is!
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