I am reading an ace book. It is the one I bought in Waterstones in Blackpool, and it has been worth every penny and I don’t like putting it down but alas am finishing it far too quickly
It is the diary of a brain surgeon who saws into people’s skulls and takes out tumours and fastens up aneurisms and things, and it is absolutely brilliant. It has made me wish that I had paid more attention at school as I am sure that I would have liked doing that, if only I had thought of it at the time, apart from the blood and the dead people, obviously. The last part is deeply worrying, by the way. I think I am going to talk to Mark about getting some health insurance.
However, I didn’t pay sufficient attention, and I am not now a brain surgeon, but a taxi driver, and I think it might be getting a bit late to consider retraining now. So I have spent my day sitting peacefully and largely undisturbed on Bowness Taxi Rank looking at the lake and imagining drilling into people’s foreheads. I only told other taxi drivers about this because I thought customers might have found it troubling.
Richard has been sitting next to me, and we have been waving to his father, who actually did listen at school, unlike either me or Richard, and was a doctor until he retired, and who has spent this afternoon sailing his boat up and down the lake, and waving back to us. He must have been looking at us through his binoculars because he phoned Richard up and was cross with him because he was smoking, so Richard had to do it on the side of his car that was hidden from the lake after that, even though he is in his fifties.
Richard’s beard-growing project been keeping him busy, and has done really very well, in a greyish sort of way, and we are all impressed with the results. Paul was there as well today. He is usually knowledgeably medical having been in St John’s Ambulance and had a go at all sorts of things like midwifery and hideous injuries, but his wife’s dad died last night and so he was ignoring us speculating about brain surgery and beard growth and other people’s sailing whilst he contemplated mortality and the possibility of free beer at the funeral.
Apart from the chance to put my feet up and chat and read my book at work, I have had really quite a busy day. It has been a day of getting my act together, which I have needed to do for quite a while.
I have phoned the theatre and sorted out our Christmas arrangements again, they were surprisingly nice about it, partly because it was a girl this time and not the icily patient bloke it has been the last three times I have changed the booking who was starting to get a bit shirty. Also I got Mark to book our hotel. He had to be the one to do this in the end, because suspiciously they insisted on speaking to the credit card owner, and it was immediately clear to them that I was not Mr MG Ibbetson, although I did consider pretending that I was, to see what they would do. I am very glad most people aren’t so mistrustful. I have also called or texted or emailed everybody who I should have called or texted or emailed yesterday and told them about the changed dates. Mostly they were nice about it, in a mildly irritated sort of way, although I can’t understand why they are fussing and going on about idiots who can’t make their minds up, it is ages off yet.
As well as getting all or Christmas organised and sorted out, I have also done lots of other very organised and sensible things, and am now unspeakably smug and pleased with myself.
I have put away everything that I ironed yesterday, and cooked a tray of thirty fat sausages to feed into Mark and Oliver in hungry emergencies, of which they have many, so many in fact that when I came in from work they had eaten fourteen of them already. I have replaced the almost-used coffee and refilled the hand soap squirty thing. I have taken my jacket to the dry cleaner and been to the council to collect the licence plates to go on to the back of the taxis. I have sat with Oliver until his homework is complete, and I have washed the towels and pegged them on the line to dry. I have ordered Lucy’s new socks and bicycle chain and arranged for them to be delivered to her at school. I have posted the sketch pad that she had forgotten to include in her luggage when she returned to school. I have ordered some garden canes for planting my little seeds next to.
I have, in short, tied up lots of loose ends in a satisfactory sort of manner, and now I know that I am a Good Person.
I made the mistake of doing the ordering things bit when Mark was around. He wasn’t paying much attention at first. It took a while before he realised that his credit card was actually in his pocket.
He didn’t know whether to be impressed or horrified to discover that I could give all of its details over the phone from memory.
He knows now, though.
