Rosie!

Rosie is my Sat Nav. My family know that I make a meal out of directions, NOT because I am a woman….but because I can’t be bothered to stop and look at a map, which I can read if needs must, but I feel it is easier to drive around in big circles, waste a lot of time and petrol and eventually arrive. Strangely I seem to be able to get where I am going but get lost on the way home. I clearly don’t have the homing pigeon instinct! So before I embarked on this teaching journey my family bought me Rosie. Who knows if I would have made it here from the Midlands without her! Finding my first placement school was a breeze; out on the road no one looks after me like Rosie.

My Rosie is a Garmin Sat Nav, she tells me where to go and when to do it. The technology she has is amazing! The colour of the screen lets me know if I am near a wood, near a river, in the daytime or at night. She tells me the instructions, which are written on the top of the screen, repeats it when I am closer and has a giant purple arrow to show me the way. On the off chance I don’t listen to her she says “recalculating” and gets me back on track! She is always calculating how long until I will arrive and displays it at the bottom of the screen, readjusting the time as I get held up on my way. She also counts down in miles and then in feet the distance I have until I need to turn, or will be entering a roundabout etc.

One of the best things Rosie does for me is she lets me know when I am near speed cameras. Firstly she beeps when I come into a speed camera area and a red line at the top of the screen tells me the speed of the area. A picture comes up on the screen when there is a camera on the road, and she will tell me if I am in a mobile speed camera area or if there are average speed cameras, that work out your speed over a long distance. When in these areas if I speed she beeps at me continually until I slow down.

Rosie is touch screen and so doesn’t compromise her size with buttons, she stores my recent destinations, allows me to save and name my more common trips. She lets me search for airports and train stations, restaurants and shopping centres.

Rosie is always looking out for me and before I set off she always makes me agree that I won’t touch her whilst driving, especially important now that it is illegal.

Rosie has many more tricks up her sleeve, but for now she gets me from A to B and I can go via C. My family don’t have to worry about me getting lost anymore and I have a fellow female to talk to in the car! Watch this YouTube clip, thankfully my Rosie is not like this (click on this link to see another side to Sat Nav's!)….but I am always polite so she never leads me astray!!!


(Picture of Rosie's cousin from: https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=9160&locale=en_US#)