burnt legs and bunny hopping...

So annoyed!

I now have another frikkin scare on my leg because of a stupid hot water bottle.
Call me a slow learner but it's taken me two cases of being severely burnt with a water bottle to figure that they aren't meant to have boiling water in them unless you wrap it in something a hellova lot thicker than a pillow case!
(and it kinda helps if you're NOT a deep sleeper and don't notice you're flesh slowly cooking!)
I'm now willing to invest in another electric blanket to prevent any more hideous scaring on my already traumatised legs =p

~~~~~~~~~~

In other completely unrelated news, I had a bit of an 'experience' of sorts in my mum's car today.
Primarily because it's a manual and I'm the owner of an automtic vehicle named Bessie.

Back when I was 16 or so I had a few lessons in a manual. Dad wasn't too keen on my driving skills back then and the conversations during our lessons usually consisted of this...
Dad: "watch the road when you're driving"
Me: "how am I supposed to change gear if I can't see them?!"
***
Dad: "stop at the next power pole, as if you were going to park there."
Me: "how do I stop?"
Dad: "how the frig did you get your L's?!"
***
Dad: "that's what you call bunny hopping."
Me: "is that because the car's cold?"
Dad: "no. It's because you don't know how to drive."

So anyway, back to today. I found myself sitting in Mum's 4wd in the drive way, keys in the ignition, wondering whether I should try it or not. For starters, the only reason why I found myself in this situation was because the parents are away for the weekend. (there's NO WAY they'd let me in a manual on my own!)
I had a feeling that maybe I shouldn't. Maybe it was best if I just left the car where it was. But I needed (or wanted, rather) to move it out of the drive way and onto the grass so the child I was babysitting had more room to ride his scooter.
So, I sat there. Turned the key and felt the car rumble under me and kind of jolt forward. First point of freak out. My thoughts: "cars aren't meant to go forward unless they're.........OH!!! It's in gear!!" second thought "how stupid of mum to leave it in gear...it could jolt forward at any moment, especially if the parkbrake isn't on"
(for those wondering, no I do not have blonde hair, but simply I am unfamilir with the mechanics of a manual car) =p

And that was to be the first of many mishaps.

Long story short...I ended up in the middle of the road, not knowing how I managed to get that far out of the drive way without being able to reverse it myself, since it kept stalling, and not knowing how I was going to get it onto the grass area.
At one point an older gentlemen walked past for his morning stroll and I kindly asked for his assistance. His response - "sorry love, I haven't driven since 1979". At which point I figured he'd still have a better chance of getting the car safely to it's destintion than I did.

But alas, I was on my own. I had to get it somewhere other than where it was. So I turned the key again, left foot on clutch, hand on parkbrake, and right foot on accelorator, put it into first and ..... jolted forward. This happened another 15 times atleast, and sadly that's no exaggeration. By this time though I had actually moved far enough back into the drive way and back into the original position of the car that I was safe from passing motorists.

Out I got and locked the doors, never to return into that beast of a machine again.

(atleast not until I had my dad beside me...) =p

I called mum and told her what had happened and asked if she had had her car serviced lately because it needed some work done. To which mum assured me the car was fine, it just needs to be warmed up for atleast 10-15min before you attempt anything, and asked me if I remembered anything about my past lessons...in particular that all important "half way point when you slowly bring the clutch up and the car then moves forward". Funny how I don't remember that until AFTER I've bunny hopped my way back into the drive way for half an hour.

Atleast it was a good way to start the day. I've never laughed at myself so much.
Bunny hopping is actually fun! =p