The first time you always find yourself

Straddling a line, or at a terrible angle,

And you look to the instructor, hoping

They can shed some light on where you went wrong.

Backwards and forwards you go,

In a car park frequented only by teenagers

Smoking weed on a secluded bench,

And a solitary roller skater, gliding over

The endless tarmac rink, pink wheels

Rumbling past, with each failed attempt

At the impossible task – the beast that is

The ugly reverse park.

On one of my little run routes I take in the sports ground that is opposite the estate that I live on. There’s a nice little 2km lap that you can run and it finishes at the car park in front of the athletics track.

Obviously, the athletics track isn’t in use all of the time so the car park is often almost empty. I run straight across the middle of it, but there is nearly always at least one driving instructor there with their student, trying to teach them to reverse park.

It’s quite fun to watch as people get more and more frustrated and it takes you back to the time when you were learning. I have to confess that I still always drive straight into parking spaces because I daren’t embarraa myself by trying to reverse – just in case I balls it up.

And, interestingly, there is always a random lady in that car park who is always rollerskating. I think she must be a figure skater and she started using the car park to train when the ice rinks closed during the pandemic. She is fun to watch, although I’m always slightly nervous that she’ll collide with one of the learner drivers.

Much Love

Rachel xx