I DROVE the long way to visit Eva and Nik Speakman, the Rochdale husband and wife life-coaching team.
But I came back on the motorway.
You see, I had just been cured of a phobia that had been with me for the past 10 years: motorway sliproads.
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Ever since I ripped up my L-plates I have been petrified of joining the motorway on a sliproad.
It all started when I was 18, living with my parents in Wales, and had just passed my driving test.
I'd been on a shopping trip to Chester with my mates on a dark, drizzly October day and as we approached the sliproad to get onto the A55 homeward-bound, I realised we'd hit the rush-hour.
As we approached the end of the slip road there seemed to be no room to get out. Cars whizzed past and the vehicles behind were beeping their horns.
After that, every time I plucked up the courage to go on a motorway (which wasn't very often) my heart would start racing, I'd feel sick and dizzy with irrational fear that it would happen again. I'd developed a phobia.
I became an expert on B roads and would happily drive miles out of my way to avoid a motorway. On the rare occasions I had to travel on a motorway (I'd moved to Lancashire now) I would wait until midnight when I knew the roads would be dead before setting off.
But something happened this year - the 10 year anniversary of the fear that had such an impact on my life. I decided enough was enough.
And that's where Nik and Eva Speakman came in.
I'd met them when I interviewed them for an article and they'd offered to cure my phobia with one of their eccentric techniques.
The actual process sounds odd, but is apparently based on hard science. They got me to close my eyes and imagine myself sitting in a cinema watching the trauma-causing memory of the sliproad in Chester on the big screen.
All of a sudden - out of nowhere - the pair of them began to hum the Benny Hill theme tune in a bizarre comedy way. Yes, really.
Of course I couldn't help but laugh out loud - but they carried on regardless.
Next I had to imagine Elmer Fudd (the cartoon character who was always after Bugs Bunny) vacuuming up my memory. I had to imagine our faces warping as they got sucked in.
This strange experience was apparently changing my memory and feelings about the incident that kicked off my phobia.
And - believe it or not - on the road home I entered the slip road . . . no problem. I even came off again and back on to test my new-found skill and I still felt calm!
That was a few weeks ago and since then I've been on motorways more times then I have in the last year.
Do I think it was this strange therapy that cured me? I'd say it was 50 per cent the Speakmans and their brilliant (if odd) technique, and 50 per cent my own desire to beat this thing.
I wouldn't say I'm totally in love with motorway driving and I still feel a bit anxious just before I join the motorway.
But you know what? As cheesy as it sounds, instead of feeling sick and planning an escape route down the hard shoulder, now I just feel the fear and do it anyway.
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