Why you should never ask me where you are going?

 

I am really really lousy at directions….no really. 

I don’t mean find it on a map/GPS/iphone app type directions. I mean that thing when someone pulls up to you in their car as you are walking along the pavement and says..

“s’cuse me love, can you tell me where xxxx is”

When someone says that to me, my recollection of the surrounding areas switches off like a light on timer. Even though i have lived here a long time…and in this same area a.long.time.

It is all gone, like sand in the wind and i am blank.

Perfectly illustrated this morning when i was juggling kids, buggy and wild dog along the road to school. A very young looking lady came up to me just as i was about to cross the busiest road on my school run. 

In broken english she asks me where she can get on the number 75 bus?

Sudden panic from me,  she is obviously lost and looking for direction AND asking me public transport info. I have no idea but instead of saying that i try to disguise my appalling lack of knowlegdge for the local area and ask her where exactly she needs to go. 

and what ensues is what appears to be an explanantion that she is looking for a school, but she isnt sure where but its somewhere on the 75 route out of town and its a catholic primary school, she has been there before but doesn’t remember where it was. 

Me: *lightbulb* Oh there is a catholic primary school just up here on the right, that MUST be it, do you know the name of the school?

She didnt but she obviously thought i somehow did so she decided to walk with me (‘cos i need an extra person to shepherd across the road”) up to the school anyhow.  

As we were walking she mentioned that she thought there was a bridge near the school with a ‘how you say’ busy road near it. I had a sudden flashforward to what was going to happen in a few short minutes ‘cos i was pretty sure there were no bridges or busy roads outside the school i was taking her too. I didnt say anything and we did in fact discover that it wasn’t in fact the school. surprise.  

I did feel for her, she was getting stressed about being late and so i had a sudden flash of inspiration and sent her over the road to talk to the school lollipop man, who i knew through repeated conversations with him had a lot of knowledge about local buses.  

She will be okay now i think i say to Maisie. We walk along a little further and then out of the corner of my eye i see her sprinting down the opposite side of the street and jump onto an 75 bus heading IN to town. 

oh dear…..

Its not just the once, there has been many times when cars have pulled over and asked me for a road or location and i have had moments of clarity after my initial ‘wha?’ (so i think). I give them detailed instructions only to think as they drive off…oh…..that might not be right. One lady stopped and asked me the name of the road she was on and i confidently gave her the name only to five minutes later walk past a road sign and see that in fact i had been wrong. oops. 

Partially, as well, it comes from my really rubbish left/right o’ meter. I can actually remember the point in my life when i worked out how to tell them apart, i might have been in secondary school…towards the end of it!

Im also not good with road names, i don’t really pay much attention unless im looking for a road myself. My directions are more likely to be ‘up past the telephone box and the house with the big tree’

Probably the worst one ( which still makes me cringe) was a young guy who asked me how to find a health clinic he was looking for. I had initially been a bit suspicious of him because he had been hovering around on the road a bit. But I think he hadnt asked anyone because the clinic he was looking for was a sexual health clinic!

Anyway..he asked me. Got out his letter from this clinic with the address on which i read and let out a long ‘ahhhhhhh’ noise. Yes..yes.. i know where that is…..its not far..no you are really close. I then proceeded to give him directions and set him off jogging (he was late for his appointment) in the opposite direction. 

I carried on..strolling along, feeling happy. yes another person helped, geographical disaster averted!  Until i came to the end of the street we had both been on and stared in horror at the street name. We had in fact been ON the street that he needed and i was now stood in front of the clinic that i had just sent this poor man AWAY from! 

He was long goneand i was tempted to drop into the clinic and apologise on his behalf. 

My advice…ask someone else, just because i look like i might have walked these streets with all these kids for years doesnt mean i have any idea of what they are called. 

or better yet ask the satnav.

Then you can’t blame me if you end up on the other side of town.