18/08/2026
People think this job is relaxing. It is not. It is a full-contact sport played entirely with your feet, because you live with one hovering over a dual control pedal like a sniper.
You become a part-time therapist. Every lesson starts the same: “I’m nervous today.” So am I. We’re nervous together — that’s the lesson.
Meanwhile every other driver in Scotland has decided your L-plate car is a personal insult. They sit two inches off your bumper, overtake on blind bends, and sigh audibly at red lights as if the laws of physics are your fault. Nothing quite says “patience” like a Transit van breathing down your neck while your student attempts their first roundabout.
Seventeen years in, and people still ask how I stay so calm. I don’t. I’ve just learned to scream internally at a frequency only dogs can hear.
And yet — every time a nervous learner passes and does that little fist pump, it’s worth all of it. Even the tailgaters.
