JEREMY CORBETT

I’m the same man I was last week. Perhaps three percent less manly. All because I decided to go for a drive.

It was a seaside drive with my darling, one of our daughters and her friend. A lovely drive that unfortunately took us to a dead end.

The only way to turn around appeared to be to drive onto the beach. “Surely not,” said a cautious voice in my head. “Yeah, no worries,” said another. “Look. There are other four-wheel drives on there. It’ll be fine.”

So off I went – quickly across the soft sand onto the hard beach where I executed my turn. We were fine. “Told you,” said the confident voice in my head.

But I turned too quickly and we hit soft sand with no momentum and the wheels not straight, and soon came to a whirring halt.

“Told you,” said the cautious voice in my head.

“Told you,” said an actual voice from my wife.

But I was no idiot. All I needed to do was engage the four-wheel drive. Turns out, the vehicle we’d borrowed was not a four-wheel drive − I was an idiot.

After a few attempts to wiggle free, it became obvious we were stuck. The tension rose.

My eight-year-old daughter screamed, “I want to get out! I want to get out!”

Something about the tone of her voice told me it wasn’t safety she was worried about, but trying to get as far as possible from the embarrassment.

We needed help.

JEREMY GETS CAUGHT OUT AT THE BEACH, YET FINDS THERE’S NOTHING BUT GOOD VIBRATIONS

Thank God for the salt-of-theearth stoic Kiwis often found wandering the beaches of Aotearoa – hardened folk used to city slickers getting stuck where they ought not to be.

In this case, it was three well-manicured women in yoga gear walking the beach with their coffees.

They directed me to

“pop it in reverse, luv” and pushed me back onto the hard sand. Rescued.

I was thankful, but my daughter and her friend sank low in the backseat. The embarrassment was upon us.

“Relax,” I said. “It could be worse.”

Then it was. We got stuck again. The girls in the back could sink no lower.

By now, Push the Corby had become a new beach sport and there was no shortage of pushers to get us to our destination.

A cheer went up as the front wheels got traction and we pulled up onto the road. We’d created a real sense of community!

Several people hovered around waiting hopefully for a third event but there would be none; we were done, back on actual roads continuing our actual drive.

Thank you to our saviours.

May your beach walks be uneventful in future.

I learned a few things that day, the most brutal being this: You don’t know how cutting words can be until a seven-year-old and an eight-year-old girl launch a sustained attack on your driving ability from the back seat.