Wise words from Dad in “The Brady Bunch” film.  If only I had heeded them last Saturday…

I was going to deliver some training workshops at a conference in Port Seton, down the coast from Edinburgh.  I left my house at 8am, knowing I needed to be at my destination for 9 to have time to set up, and confident that I’d got more than enough time in hand – I even anticipated that for once I might be a good bit early.

The journey was uneventful, the traffic was not too busy at that time on a Saturday morning as I made my way around the city by-pass.  I hit a series of uncomplicated junctions and roundabouts and navigated them with no problems, just needing a cursory glance at my printout of directions from AA’s route finder site.  

As I drove down to where Prestonpans, Cockenzie and Port Seton all run essentially along the same road by the coast I got to that stage in my journey where I knew I just had to look out for the signs and landmarks my colleagues had told me to aim for.  So I drove, and drove, and drove.  I followed signs for community centres, scooted to likely-looking buildings and anxiously watched the clock as my early arrival was steadily eroded. 

Then.  THEN…I realised that the signs for Prestonpans Community Centre were going to do me no good at all, and the reason I couldn’t find the streets on my map of Port Seton was that I was actually driving around Prestonpans and had been for the last 20 minutes. 

How stupid am I?!

This is, according to my good friend Brunette Koala, known as a Malteser moment.  Look at her blog for some more classic examples.  It’s good to know there’s more than one of us.  Or maybe just quite worrying…