A run-in with the police

A cancelled meeting this morning has fortuitously given me the opportunity to write this - finally - after a busy and "fun-filled" weekend.  (This morning was the 5.30am wake-up call, which is usually preceded by an inability to sleep for about three hours, then sleep marred by dreams about not waking up in time to get to my meeting, followed by waking up one or two more times, just to see if it's time to get up yet.)  So, back to the weekend.

I had the fun of an impromptu driving lesson, when the architect took me to an airfield with a disused bit of track I could drive up and down on.  Apart from a few early blunders, I made progress with changing gears and braking more gently as well as learning that it's not necessary to change back down to first gear when you slow down considerably, as it's normally quite happy to carry on in 2nd gear, as long as you're not going up a hill or something.  My irrational fear of stalling prevented me from learning this quickly, so it took three goes in a row for me to feel more confident about it.

The same went for feeling confident about being in neutral, so I could safely come off the clutch without stalling.  I never quite trusted myself on that one.  Hence it was marvellous timing when along came a police car and drove up behind me with its lights flashing.  Hmm.  Great.  So now what?  I happily stopped the car, but the being sure of being in neutral so that I could come off the clutch and then being sure of the car not rolling if I also switched the engine off without putting on the handbrake, just didn't come so easily.

So as the architect jumped out to talk to the police, I sat there like a lost lamb, wondering if it was ok to switch the engine off, wondering if I should roll the window down, even though they were already talking to him, then wondering which goddamned button it was to wind the window down with anyway.  I opted for: engine off, but leave the window buttons alone, for fear of embarrassing 'back-windows-winding-down-instead-of-front-ones' scenario. 

And how on earth would my Czech have fared in trying to talk to the authorities anyway?  What if I accidentally used the 'Ty' form with them?  Would they imprison me for impolite use of their language?  I don't even know the Czech for, "yes, officer."  In the end, they didn't bother to ask to see my licence, which I did have with me, and which you now would not believe I actually acquired by passing a driving test in the UK about 12-15 years ago.  Apparently, we weren't supposed to be using this area for driving around in.  But they did concede that my learning here was a better idea than on a proper road.

The architect came back and told me that they weren't particularly annoyed that he'd been teaching me to drive in this area, but rather, they had instructed him, "just teach your girlfriend that it's polite to wind the window down when the police stop you."  Well, of course I will next time.  Now that I know which button it is.