Saturday 20 July 2013

My not so hidden talent

It’s great that I can do something really well but sometimes I wish that my talent lay elsewhere. Unfortunately for me, my talent is the ability to get lost. Let me give you today’s example which highlights just how talented I am.

The kids and I were travelling home after visiting family interstate.  I figured that buying petrol would be a great thing to do before I got on a motorway or an expressway or any kind of road that you can’t get off for a long way.  So we stopped, I bought petrol and some snacks for the trip home and we proceeded on our merry way. Now at some point not too long after that I saw a sign for the road I needed to be get on to head home. I was over a lane too far and so I missed the turn.

No problem I thought, just get Boy Child to start the map app on my phone and it will show us how to get back to the road we needed to be on. He started the app and I was following along the directions and thinking umm this doesn’t look familiar anymore. Now bear in mind I do this same trip at least 3 times a year so I should have recognised something. But I didn’t and that concerned me.  Plus the little voice on the machine hadn’t spoken for a while so I wondered if it had turned it off somehow and I’d missed another turn. Nope, it was just in Sydney traffic half of 12kms it wanted us to go had taken about 20 minutes. The time it was going to take to get home had increased significantly as well. Weird, I thought. We should have been on the tollway ages ago. Something was very, very wrong.

Sydney maps: Suburbs  map of Sydney Australia

Sydney map from http://www.living-in-sydney.com/sydney-suburb-map.html

It turned out when Boy Child turned the app on he selected the route without tolls.  So we heading home via the non toll route which (according to the GPS) was apparently still 3 hours 22 minutes away. Given we had already been driving for an hour and a quarter by then I was a little upset.  I stopped at the next service station we came to and I left the car for a little while to pace a little and generally calm down.

About 5 minutes of deep breathing helped and so I returned to the car and we set off again. Our trip home ended up being about five hours instead of the typical three and a half. On the plus side we had an adventure and we arrived safe and sound just significantly later than planned. This is not the only instance we I have gotten us geographically misplaced. I have often managed to take several different ways to get to my grandmothers (which has added an extra five to ten minutes) but have done okay with that the last few times.  Of course there was also the time I got very lost while visiting my sister near the gold coast a few years ago. which my family hasn’t let me forget. However, I think today’s trip  has outdone all the other times put together.  I’m glad I’m not planning anymore trips away for a while.

3 comments:

Sarah said...

Oh E, how I empathise! I'm worse than you though. I just arranged to meet SD on the other side of town at a friend's house which I've been driven to many many times - I managed to get completely lost on my bike and ended up heading for exmoor! ;-)

Leanne @ Deep Fried Fruit said...

Hi E!
Totally empathise
But on the plus side, you got to see stuff you wouldn't normally see.
I did it myself this year driving north of Sydney. I was so busy "chair dancing" that I missed a major turn in Sydney to put me on a freeway and ended up driving through the northern suburbs of Sydney instead. Bummer. Got to see some lovely houses though ...
Hope you are well.
Me, not so much (as you know). Damn migraines have returned.
Hope yours are well in hand by now.
Cheers
L x o x o

Suzi - Under The Windmills said...

Bah ha ha! Oh sorry, I shouldn't laugh- I get lost a lot too ! We had better never go on a road trip together, we'd aim for Sydney and arrive in Darwin ;)

 

Copyright 2011 Whining at the World | Powered by Blogger | Designed by Carly Lloyd Designs