Straight up I'll admit I'm not the world's best driver.
 
How often will you hear a man admit that?

Nor am I exactly the world's worst.

Living in France and, in particular, negotiating the streets of Paris as both a motorist and pedestrian, has undoubtedly taught me a thing or two since passing my test many years ago back in Britain.

And of course I'm more than used to driving on the right - or should that be the wrong - side of the road.

But there's one thing I've never really got to grips with, and that's parking.

My problems come in all shapes and sizes; street parking, shopping centres, airports, multi-storey and underground.

When in Paris, I am one of those people who can spend the longest time driving around in never-decreasing circles looking for a free space as close to the appartment as possible, only to find myself forced to take one a trot-and-a-half from the apartment.

If I had wanted to walk, I would have left the car behind!

Of course just as I reach the front door of the building, overladen with luggage naturally, a space opens up as someone leaves.

Shopping centres are wonderful aren't they? Built with the motorist in mind, they offer - acres - or should that be hectares - of parking space.

But I have to ask. Am I the only person who can never remember where they've left the car?

I don't think so as I've often come across people, trolley loaded to overflowing, looking bothered and bewildered but definitely not bewitched as they try to work out where their car is.

Join the gang.

Over the years, my strategy has been always to park more or less in the same area - no matter how far I might have to walk or what the weather's like.

But "more or less" is far from being an exact science, and on more than one occasion I have been spotted wandering up and down each row, aiming the remote control in all directions willing my car to yell back at me with it's familiar light flashing "yoo hoo".

Let's talk multi-storeys. Yes let's. And especially those at airports.

Finding a space isn't necessarily as easy as it might at first appear, and that's in spite of the ever-so-helpful sign as you enter telling you level one is full, there are three spaces available on level two, 55 on three and 75 on four.

Level three it is then. Except when you arrive, you discover the information you've been given doesn't exactly match reality as the whole floor seems to be full. So it's up another level and some more endless circling until, "Hallelujah, there's one!"

Oh for the system in place at Geneva airport where peering hopefully through the windscreen for a precious space is made easier by overhead lights indicating which ones are taken (red) and which are free (green).

Easy innit? Trust the Swiss to get it right.

Geneva airport - so easy to spot the available spaces

But underground car parks are probably where I really come into my own. "Rubbish wouldn't be the word to describe my "skills" as I negotiate my way down the narrowest of ramps barely wider than the car.

The tyres screech in protest as I power steer in reverse naturally - the only manœuvre I can accomplish with something approaching a flourish - into an available space.

The only problem is I invariably find myself parked right up against one of those pillars propping up the ceiling, hemmed in and unable to open the door on the driver's side.

Still, there's always a way out...clambering elegantly over the handbrake and out through the door on the passenger side.

And I shan't share that special moment from several years ago when I borrowed a friend's car early one morning, driving happily up the ramp too close to the wall and scraping the whole of one side in the process.

I made amends though because in the evening I did exactly the same thing to the other side of the car: symmetry...and a hefty repair bill into the bargain.

Er, did I say earlier I wasn't a bad driver?

No, I just said I wasn't the worst.

Time for a spot of music - I worked it into the blog earlier (you may have noticed) - so here you are...take it away Ella.