Saturday 10 May 2008

If ever there was a time for SatNav...

It may be a cliche, but a lot of women have no sense of direction and can't navigate. I read once that it is because women have no spacial awareness. Possibly true. Definitely true for a lot of women in my family (my mother, possibly, excepted).

Today I was meeting my cousin for lunch. My cousin lives around the South Circular from Charlton in Dulwich. Not too far of a trip; especially as this isn't the first time she has picked me up. She was supposed to arrive at 11:30; at gone 12 my phone rang... "I'm so sorry, the traffic is awful and I think I'm going the wrong way... are you anywhere near Catford?"

I told her to point herself to Lewisham and thereafter to Woolwich (or failing that Greenwich). Over an hour later the phone rang again "I'm in Greenwich, are you near Trafalgar Road?"... there was a pause "Oh, a sign to Charlton!". I suggested that she went with that and sometime later she finally arrived.

I can't give her too much stick because I've had more than similar problems myself. There was the famous occasion of trying to find Worcester off the M6 and repeatedly driving up and down between the same two junctions for the best time of half an hour.

The difference between us is my cousin has SatNav (which she forgot to charge) and I rely on road signs and internet route finders to give me directions!