wrong sides

The plan only formed this week, but it was great. I was looking forward to a weekend in Devon and Cornwall. A friend currently working in Northern Ireland but about to return to his country of origin had booked a flight to visit London one last time, and I had rented a car. The weather forecast was perfect, predicting sunshine and temperatures for the beach.

On my way home from work today, I received a confused text from my friend telling me about a missing reservation and asking for his reference number. As I had my computer on my back, I could sit down between streams of rush-hour traffic in the middle of Kensington High St. to browse through saved emails. His was there, and I texted the confirmation number back. All seemed good.

Except is wasn't. What neither he nor I had noticed was that he had booked the flight for the last weekend in July not June. Changing it to right now would have been prohibitively expensive. He decided to stay in Belfast – never mind the rain there.

I decided to go ahead with the rented car anyway, going out to Heathrow tonight to pick it up. It's been a few months since I've driven here, and though I should have known I wasn't ready for the profound shock driving on the wrong side of the road still gives me. Everything is wrong.

It starts inside the car. The shift stick is on the wrong side, as is the hand brake. The middle rear-view mirror hangs to left. Out of habit, I look to the right, but all I see is the A column of the vehicle, and something is missing.

It continues on the outside. The proportions of the car are all messed up. I have got used to oncoming traffic passing me on the right side, but must it really be close enough to touch? I'm used to cars extending by a meter on my right side (the passenger side if you drive on the right). Here, there's just a door. In contrast, the car goes on forever on the left. On the short drive home I had two incredibly close encounters, on with a taxi and the other – truly scary – with a big red bus.

Returned home from the airport I'm thinking that maybe it wasn't cost that kept my friend from coming here. Maybe it was good old-fashioned sense. The streets of Belfast might be dreary on a rainy weekend, but they're surely safer than the roads of England when I'm driving.