Sat Nav

I have a sat nav and I love it. Not only does it tell me when I am going to arrive somewhere but it tells me how to get there. Gone are the days of pulling over to look at the map (or into a service station to look at one when I have forgotten mine). Gone are the days of trying to find the road I am on, on the map. Gone are the days of meeting new people asking them where I am, and gone are the days of calling Mother to ask whether she could ‘just look up where I am heading to’.

Or so I thought. 

I came out last time without the cable.  Of course, map reading is easy…everyone can do it. I recall asking a friend whether he could map read ‘is the pope a catholic’ he said.  I handed him the map and off we went. After a few  situations (failure to issue any direction because the roundabout wasn’t on the map/ no advanced warning of junctions/ the wrong page….) I realised the pope probably wasn’t a catholic.

The best example was when we were at a T-Junction. ‘Left or Right’ says I. ‘Straight on’ says he. ‘There is no straight on’ says I… and after a little while of batting too and forward he pointed at the map and said ‘the map says straight on’. Clearly there was going to be no deviation from straight on from the passenger seat despite ‘straight on’ being a brick wall.  I turned right and pulled over to examine the lines on the page (had we been where he THOUGHT we were straight on would have been a perfect direction.. but we had already done that bit) . We arrived…eventually.

Another friend is quite proud when he recalls his wife’s map reading. She managed to navigate all the way to the destination without even being on the right page of the map!

So there I was without my sat nav. I can map read, but I can’t do it while I am driving – I think map reading is as distracting as a mobile phone. Leaning over to the passenger seat to check which junction/road turning/etc is not ideal. Indeed, doing anything other than looking out of the windscreen is dangerous.

So, back to the other day. There I was pulled over somewhere thinking I wasn’t far from somewhere else and decided I would see whether my friends were around for coffee – they were.  Off I set expecting to be 25minutes away.  It quickly dawned on me when I finally passed a road sign that I wasn’t where I thought I was. Eventually I was in the right direction, missed a turning and ended up going south, not north, on the M1. I recalled the map and decided not to turn around but take a cross country route… not my best idea.  Eventually after visiting 3 towns (I should have passed none and certainly not gone through any) I arrived… quite considerably later than I intended, but far more relaxed than I expected after a long diversion around our beautiful countryside.

On my return home I turned the boat upside down to find the cable. The car will now be travelling without too many detours. I had forgotten what a wonderful gift from my Mother the sat nav was.

Thanks Mum!