'I drove a car for the first time in years and 1 thing was completely unexpected'

This week I was dispatched to try out the new in east , and, in order to carry out this mission, I obviously needed a . But I have by this point been without one for more than two years, having sold my reliable little Ford Fiesta when I moved to London from the East Midlands in March 2023. There was just no need for it in this wonderful world of constant trains and buses down south.

The vehicle had been crucial to me as a local journalist working in Derbyshire, as I drove around hither and dither to cover stories across the county. But after wracking up many miles, this suddenly stopped, and, before Monday, I had not been behind the wheel since. This was a shame as I had enjoyed driving ever since I passed my test (first time) 10 years ago in 2015. Indeed, my driving license expires in July, so I was cutting it fine.

I look about 12-years-old in the photo, and in the top left corner is the EU flag.

The absence of my own car meant a hire car had to be arranged, and I turned up at Enterprise in Lewisham first thing in the morning so that I could drive through the Silvertown Tunnel during peak time.

You can read about how that went .

A tad nervous, I found straight away that, when I pulled out of the car park, it was like I'd never left the drivers' seat.

I had a couple of new things to contend with in the very smooth and pleasant to drive 74 plate Peugeot 208 GT, these being a push to start button instead of an ignition key, and a handbrake that wasn't actually a handbrake, more of a switch.

These were surmountable, albeit initially baffling. My Fiesta was from 2011, so relatively old school.

Before that, I used my mum's old Toyota Yaris, and I learned in a diesel Volkswagen Polo.

At one point during the day, it took a few minutes to find reverse gear as, in the vehicles I had driven before, you just slotted straight in, and there was no switch you needed to fiddle with first.

I was also a bit trepidatious about driving in London for the first time, and it was certainly very strange seeing the capital's streets from neither the pavement nor the point of view of a passenger on a bus.

But, somewhat unexpectedly, I found that making my way through the streets of Lewisham was very familiar, feeling like many of the places I'd driven before elsewhere in the country. This was apart from the near constant 20mph limits - I'm far more used to 30.

The same went for merging onto the motorways around the Blackwall and Silvertown Tunnel.

In fact, I was taken back to my time on the A50 before merging onto the M1 home after a shift at the Derby Telegraph.

Besides one blunder, accidentally going down the Blackwall Tunnel instead of the Silvertown Tunnel, and a couple of wrong turns in an unfamiliar part of the city, which were quickly rectified, the job went off without a hitch.

I had predicted that, by the end, I would be enjoying myself and wanting to go for a longer drive for pleasure.

This turned out to be prescient. But, alas, the office was calling, and I had to actually write up the piece I went out to do.