You will be pleased to hear that I am feeling considerably restored to good spirits today.
This is because of a jolly good sleep, which is always nice, and I woke up this morning feeling full of determination to make the world a better place.
In fact actually my corner of the world needed to be a cleaner place, with particular reference to the children’s bathrooms. Apart from Oliver’s shower, which was still pretty much pristine, they were horrible.
I summoned the household and announced that we were all going to work together to make our little world a better and happier place for the next week. We would have lovely clean bedrooms and food in the cupboards and joy and happiness in our immaculate world.
The children were not exactly ecstatic at this prospect, but nevertheless reluctantly agreed to get dressed, even though it was weekend, and make themselves useful.
Mark cleaned the taxis out.
This was even less lovely a job than usual, because some complete numpty had rubbed chips and mayonnaise into the back seat of mine. He had done this by way of intoxicated retaliation for my request that he keep them wrapped up in their polystyrene carton for the ten minute duration of his journey home. I realised what he was doing, and ejected him into the dark, from which point I hope he had a jolly long walk.
There were some very drunk people on the taxi rank early in the evening, and one of them had decided to shout rude things at me, because I had refused to take them.
This had not been because they were drunk, if I refused drunk people I would go broke quite quickly, but because there were six of them, and my car will only take four. I declined their suggestion that two of them might lie on the floor, employed an abrupt Anglo-Saxon dismissal, and then ignored them from that point.
A couple scurried past them and got in, and I was immensely touched to discover that the lady was terribly concerned for my well being. She pleaded with me not to go back to the taxi rank until it was safer, and wondered if I might go home and come back on another, less violent evening.
Since there had been no actual bloodshed, or more pertinently, none of my blood shed, as far as I was concerned there had not been any kind of problem at all, and was astonished to discover that she thought that the threat level was grave. I pondered all the way back to the taxi rank on the obvious rhinoceros thickness of my skin.
A gentleman got in last week and spent the entire journey apologising profusely for his rudeness on our last encounter some three weeks previously. He had been vile, he said, the rudest and most unpleasant he had ever been towards anybody in his whole life. He was sorry, he said, it had been the drink, and it had been preying on his mind ever since, and would I please forgive him.
His face was vaguely familiar, but I had got no recollection of the incident whatsoever. It would appear, I realised, that you have got to be actually psychotic before my consciousness decides to store you away for future consideration. This pleased me enormously, how very handy to have achieved total immunity to idiots.
I digress.
I cleaned out the fridge and washed the pots and ironed some things, and demonstrated to the children the function of bleach in bathrooms. I emptied the fruit bowl of the horrible blackening fruit that nobody has eaten and warned the children about scurvy.
Then we went shopping to Booths.
The children pointed out that this was the most rubbish summer holiday outing ever, and cheered it up by singing, quite loudly, all of the way round. They sang “It’s a Small World”, which was not enhanced by them only being able to remember the first line. Then they poked one another with their elbows, and in between they filled the trolley up.
Family shopping trips involve every family member putting the things that they would like to eat into the trolley, and nobody remembering washing up liquid or dog food.
When we got to the checkout it turned out that we had got Battenburg cake and chocolate rolls and six large bars of chocolate. Oliver had chosen cornflakes, despite not being entirely certain what they were, and Lucy had selected porridge, which she remembered eating when she was small, when we used to play at being the Three Bears, because it was before Oliver was born.
There were chocolate pancakes and white sliced bread and the dullest sort of pizza they could find. I had chosen some unpasteurised Brie, and Mark added bacon and Ryvita crackers. Somebody had put some cherries in, and somebody who wasn’t me had chosen Haribos. Everybody except Oliver remembered pesto, and nobody remembered washing up liquid or dog food.
Tomorrow I shall go round to the the Co-op for milk, apple juice, and some things that are good for people.
Not that anybody is likely to eat them.
