Thinking

I have just had a very grumpy young man in my taxi.

“‘S an effing joke,” he said, when I asked him for £3.70 for the fare.

“No, it isn’t,” I explained patiently. “Listen. What’s white and would kill you if it fell on you out of a tree?”

He looked puzzled.

“Dunno,” he said crossly. “Wot you talkin’ about?”

“A fridge,” I said. “There, now you see, that is a joke. Asking you for £3.70, that’s called a request. They’re different things.”

He gave me four pounds and got out, scratching his head and looking dumbfounded.

“Learn somefink new every day, don’t you?” he remarked, the puzzled expression not leaving his face.

He even forgot to ask for his change.

Mark says that this is why customers don’t like me. However this is not completely true, because some customers actually do like me. There are even one or two who would rather get in my taxi than anybody else’s.

A good example of that is a very nice young man who I pick up regularly. He rang me last night to see if I minded taking him home and waiting whilst he got changed out of his football kit into something less muddy.

The fact that he rang me says that I like him, because I don’t do people phoning up and wanting taxis, it is too much like having a real job.

Of course I didn’t mind waiting for him, because he is a nice chap, and whilst I was waiting his mother came out and talked to me.

I liked her very much as well, you can tell when people belong to a family where everybody is kind to each other, and she chatted for ages and made me laugh.

“No,” she said, in response to a question about him leaving home. “I don’t think he will, not any time soon. Sometimes I think I wouldn’t mind if he did: but he won’t. When you drop him off here after his night out he comes and gets in bed with me and his father, because he doesn’t like to be on his own. He’s twenty three. We keep thinking he’ll grow out of it.”

Mark and I finished the night with a run each around to the other side of the lake, at about half past three. This was a party of young doctors, assembled in the Lake District from NHS Trusts all over the country.

I had a gynaecologist, a paediatrician and an A&E doctor. They explained that they were having a practice stag party, and that they have one every year so that by the time one of them gets married they will know exactly what to do for the most brilliantly riotous time. I thought this was a jolly good idea, not that they looked to me as though they needed any more practice.

They kindly warned me not to go to the hospital in Barrow, so I am passing the useful advice on here.

They said that if we had an accident it would probably be better to die at the scene.

We didn’t have an accident, but if ever I do I shall remember to ask the ambulance men if they would mind terribly going to Lancaster.

The picture at the top is the once-again modified lawless door. I was going to put another lantern among the leaves at the bottom, which is why I have left it so light: but am having doubts, I may have to make it darker and paint some more leaves. Mark has suggested a camp fire, which might be the thing.

Just so you know, and to stop anybody else being helpful, I know that the moon does not look like that. I haven’t finished any of it. It is still in the blocked out stage.

Painting involves a very great deal of thinking about.

I am going to have to hurry up.

We are going away on Thursday.