Well, there goes another rite of passage; I have now had my first car accident.
I attended a dance workshop in Abingdon yesterday afternoon, which was very good, and was planning on attending the freestyle in the evening. However, I had a couple of hours between the two, so I decided to drive home to have a shower and some dinner before going back to Abingdon for the freestyle.
But I never made it to the freestyle, as while driving through Wooton I momentarily took my eyes off the road and so clipped the corner of the car against a wall, rendering it undriveable.
I wasn’t hurt, no other vehicles were involved, and the damage to anything besides the car was fairly minimal. And the damage should be covered by the insurance; my father thinks that the damage probably isn’t quite enough to write the car off. So as accidents go, it could have been much worse. And I gather that most people get into an accident at some point in their first year or so of driving, so I guess this is just something I have to learn from and move on.
But what is frustrating is how much it restricts what I can do. I don’t know whether I’ll make it to Ceroc tomorrow or the following Monday. Jive+ in Banbury on Tuesday is very unlikely. The Jive+ freestyle on Friday will be difficult, although I’m hoping I can still get to that (at least I don’t have to get up the day afterwards, so it matters less that relying on buses could mean that I get home considerably later than I otherwise would). Jive Temptation‘s advanced lesson on the 29th might well be out as well (I’ve never been to that before, so I don’t know how great a loss that is), depending on how long it takes before the car is fixed.
In fact, possibly the greatest shock is to be reminded of how completely dependent I have become on driving so quickly after passing my test.
In the end, aside from the Abingdon Freestlye, I haven’t had to miss anything so far this week. It’s been more difficult by public transport, but not impossible.