Last day of the bank holiday, and I am very relieved.
Today we have not been working quite as flat out as we ought to have done. In fact we have had a very idle afternoon pottering about the house. My friend Kate came to see me, and the weather was so glorious that we were able to sit in the garden with our pot of tea.
We should have been at work early really, but actually it has been such a quiet bank holiday that it didn’t matter.
I think it has been the least busy bank holiday that I have ever known. This must have been lovely for the people who were here, because today the sun has been shining with true springtime benevolence, and everywhere smells of bluebells and cherry blossom.
It has been quiet because there have not been any trains. The railway line has been being mended, and so the trains have all stopped coming until tomorrow. It has got to be fixed by then because of people who want to go to work.
I made picnics and Mark cleaned the taxis out. This turned out to be unexpectedly successful because he found a new hole in the trim which has been collecting spilled money. It has all had to be thoroughly washed because it was in the sort of place which also collects spilled vomit, but all the same when we counted it we were almost ten pounds better off, which we thought was a marvellous bonus.
He sprayed the seats with some fabric scent that we bought in Disneyland, which was ace, and has made me feel happy every time I have caught a waft of it all night.
Also all my customers have remarked on what a lovely smelling taxi I have got, apart from one chap who was so cross about being charged double time that he would not have noticed if I had been growing roses and jasmine up through the holes in the carpet.
After that we sat in our rocking chairs in the garden and drank tea with Kate.
Kate was feeling weary about her teenage daughter’s newly espoused veganism. I have a great deal of sympathy with her about this, it sounds like an awful lot of hard work, fancy living on boiled mushrooms and tofu. Having girls is very different from having boys. I don’t think Oliver has ever willingly eaten a vegetable in his life.
Mark suggested that she could be dispatched to work on a farm for a while, which would at least give her an informed point of view, and help balance sympathy for sheep with irritation at their intractability and suicidal tendencies: but I suspected that Kate has got quite enough to do chopping carrots and boiling chickpeas without having to put up with muddy wellies as well.
When she went we went back to bed for our customary afternoon snooze. I always think that I will never manage to go to sleep in the middle of the day, and then thirty seconds later the alarm is going off madly and I can’t get my eyes to open at all.
We are at work now, and it is almost midnight. Just a few more hours and the whole holiday thing will be over, and tomorrow we can sleep in. I am longing for this moment with my whole soul.
I took the picture from my taxi this evening. This can be a very tranquil and happy way to earn a living sometimes.
Especially when there isn’t anybody here.
