There’s a fork in the road

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My sense of direction is non-existent. I’ve been known to leave my front door and be lost. Actually, that’s not true. I’ve never been lost in my own front garden., but I’ve left a store in the local mall and walked 100 metres before realising I was headed in the wrong direction.

In the old days (am I really saying this) streets were clearly marked. Directions were easily given and easily followed. Carry on down Church street; at Mountain Road turn left; at Main street turn right. The place you’re looking for will be 50 metres up the road. Even I could follow those directions. But nowadays (yes, I am really saying this) the challenge is finding a sign that gives you the name of the street. It’s either not there or has faded to the extent that it cannot br read. Unless you have Google maps and can understand what it’s trying to tell you, you’re lost.

You might think the image above is the Vachellia Karroo tree, aka the Sweet Thorn. In reality, it’s an Irish directional sign for to pedestrians. I once spent an hour in Dublin trying to locate a restaurant that was practically in sight of the hotel where I was staying.

I started by asking directions. ‘To be sure,’ I was told. It took a while to understand that I had to cross the river and then I would find the place.

I don’t know what the opposite of ‘To be sure’ is, but I experienced it. I ended up asking several locals for directions and finished up nowhere. It might have been my misunderstanding of Irish English, my poor directional sense or the people I asked either didn’t know or, like me, were lost.

Finally, I asked a local taxi driver for help. A call on his radio soon had a dozen of his colleagues puling up alongside us for a discussion. Success. All I had to do was cross over the river (for the third time) and it would be in front of me.

It was, and from the doorway, I could see my hotel.