I've been on the Island now for five days, with nary a rest in between. Each night I come back to Hance's place and literally, drop into bed. My physical ability is still pretty good, but my mental capacity, less so.
Parts of my body hurt that I didn't know I had. My brain feels like poutine (you can look it up)
What with all the driving this last month, the strain of having a thousand things to do, seemingly all at the same time, dealing with less than ideal weather, having stuff back home that still needs attending too, the dig here, etc etc...
I tried to come up with a humorous quip for you but to be honest, I can't seem to get that part of my brain to engage gear. Oh well, cest le vie as Islanders say. Well those living in France anyway.
One thing I can tell you though is thus; I have tried my darnedest (really I have) to adjust my driving habits to imitate those of Islanders. There is nothing worse than arriving in Athens and driving like a Canadian for example, it just would not work.
When in Rome do as the Romans do right!
So, these past few days and in my defence, given a month I could likely get fairly proficient at it, but I'm giving it the old college try anyway... I have been retraining my soggy brains to "leave the baseball cap hanger" on the left side of the steering column alone. Especially in left turns, this tends to deposit your head cover onto the floor by your feet.
When coming to a Stop sign, I have been just lightly tapping the brake-light for a hundred maybe two hundred yards prior and working at rolling smoothly through without coming to a complete stop.
From my understanding, from the helpful souls I have encountered... these are the two most critical driving errors I am committing.
Rule number one. Under no circumstances do you lay a finger on the hat hanger.
Rule number two. If you must arrive at a complete stop, try and keep rolling as much as possible.
I'm told it's so simple, even a dog can do it...
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