Yesterday Lou managed to take her BC driving licence test and I'm pleased to say she passed it without any problems! It's great news for us, she can now drive to and from work and it means she won't have to get up so early in the mornings now. Getting to work on the SkyTrain wasn't too bad but it was just so much more time consuming, now she only has to leave home half an hour before she's about to start as opposed to and hour and 15 minutes. Also she will be working the evening shift soon which finishes at 11pm so it's nice that she doesn't have to use public transport at that time.

We feel like we have more 'freedom' again now as we'd only briefly had a chance to sample it before our UK licences expired. I have only driven 4 or 5 times so far as Lou has the car with her at work most of the time during the day but now I can carry on getting some practice too because Lou can be classed as my 'supervisor'! Once I feel like I've got enough experience I'll then take the test myself but the good thing is I can still drive everywhere and we can share long distances trips (even on the highway) as long as we are both in the car.

It was an early start to get to the test centre yesterday morning. We had looked at booking a normal test but the earliest appointment we could get was at the end of November so we decided to go on standby which meant sitting and waiting for a cancellation at the Burnaby ICBC office. We had planned to do this all week but we never mentioned it to anybody else as we wanted there to be as little pressure as possible. We were determined to get the first spot on the list so we got up at 4:45am (fortunately we'd been used to doing it all week) and we arrived down there at 5:50am with the doors opening at 7:30am. Luckily we got the first spot but it wasn't long before many others arrived so we timed it well. We could tell that the other people had anticipated to be the first themselves as it was still very early and they had a slight look of disappointment on their faces to see us two already there. We gave ourselves a pat on the back too for being the most organized out of everyone! We took our beach chairs, blankets, and coffee thermos's and set-up right outside the front door, we must have looked like right happy campers! It may have looked slightly over the top but we didn't mind as we had a seat, we were warm and we had drinks unlike anyone else, others even noted that we were well prepared!

As soon as the doors opened we got registered on the list and then we waited, waited and then waited some more. Finally at 11:45am Lou's name was shouted out and off she went to take the test. It was an awful wait for me back at the office, I couldn't stay still with nerves. I'd tried to reassure and calm Lou all morning to make it seem really easy going but once she was out there I could feel butterflies in my own stomach. Lou had left behind her leopard print handbag for me to look after whilst she was out but because I couldn't sit down I had to hold it in my hand. I must have looked so ridiculous, picture it : me pacing up and down the office back and forth, holding this bloody leopard print handbag, sweating away with a panicked look on my face!

After about 45 minutes I caught a glimpse of our car out of the window, they were back in the car park and the examiner was making Lou reverse into a parking stall. I knew from reading about other people's experiences that this was the final part of the test. It was looking good and to me this meant she must have done ok on the test overall otherwise they'd have just made her drive into the spot. I watched her from a distance (being sure not to catch her eye) perform the best reverse park I have ever seen her do in my life, it was practically perfect. I felt so relieved but then she turned off the engine and the doors opened but they continued to talk. They sat in the car talking for a few minutes and I did start to worry but I couldn't wait any longer (I've never felt to impatient) so I made my way outside, handbag and everything! As I got to the car she was just getting out, she turned to look at me with the most rosy red cheeks she's ever had and before she spoke I seen her relieved smile, I knew right then that she had passed! We were both ecstatic, to others we probably looked like we'd won the lotto! Lou said the test had been ok and that the examiner was really easy going, they were more thorough then what we'd been led to believe they were but everything had gone well.

We were so happy we decided to go out and celebrate! At 5pm (which felt really late to our bodies as it had been such a long day) we made our way into downtown Vancouver on the SkyTrain. We had a meal at Whitespot (which is a low price but decent chain restaurant) and Lou had a few glasses of wine and I had a few beers. It was a really nice end to the day but we started to feel really tired so we made our way home at 7:30pm and we were asleep before 10pm again!