It rained really hard last night.
The odd thing was, I was really sure that I had closed my taxi windows.
I thought that I remembered doing it.
I really thought that I did.
Maybe the Water Gods opened them again after I had gone to bed.
Obviously it had rained in, and obviously one of the seats was all wet. This was the driver’s seat, obviously, and obviously it was still raining this morning so that it wouldn’t dry out.
I rubbed it with a towel for a few futile minutes. In the end I sat on it anyway, in a Zen-like manner, stoically, in the way of one who simply accepts the rollercoaster ride that is living in our crazy Universe, dude.
Even when I think about it again now, I still remember closing the windows. I know that I did. I remember it especially, because I had taken the key out, and I had to put it back in to get the window to close.
Perhaps they slipped down by themselves.
Mark went off to work, and I went to the bank. I don’t mind going to the bank now that Mark has taken over the part of the finances that involves doing the sums and worrying. In fact it was a happy thing to do, because my friend was behind the counter, and we talked until a queue started to form and we had to stop before the manager noticed.
After the bank I made some mayonnaise and tidied up the wreckage of the kitchen until it was time to take Lucy for her driving lesson.
On the way back I went to Asda.
It is summer, so fruit is cheap. I bought melons and mangoes and bananas and then some sausages, for Mark. I make sure he has fruit every day, because the Government wants you to do that, it is part of being a Good Citizen: but secretly Mark puts most of it in the compost bin and thinks that I don’t notice. If he gets scurvy it will be his own fault.
Asda took ages, but to my great joy when I came out again the sun was shining.
I belted home as fast as I could and tore all of the limp washing off the rack in the front room to hang it in the garden. Then I opened every single window and door in the house so that the sunshine could drift through it.
I know, of course, that this is not how sunshine works, but I hoped that dry air would breeze in and blow away the mould-spore laden damp that seemed to have permeated every fibre of the house, and actually this seemed to happen.
Maybe the Water Gods have finally been distracted by something else. Perhaps somewhere some New Age hippies are having a bash at a naked circle dance or something, and they have buzzed off to go and look, and left me in peace.
Maybe they had just forgotten, and had accidentally left the tap above our house running, and today some more responsible deity noticed and stepped over to turn it off.
Either way, we have dried out.
The carpet has dried. It still smells a bit horridly mouldy, but I imagine that by the time the dogs have slept on it and spilled their dinner on it and had the occasional accident on it, we won’t notice the mouldy smell at all.
The floor has dried. It is still black and sticky, but Mark says that most of that is glue and it will be all right.
The carpet is not back down yet, we have left it all to air with the windows open for one more night, but tomorrow morning we will be able to put it back.
It might well be that our days of being adrift in a sea of troubles are beginning to be over.
Land ahoy.
You are supposed to imagine that the picture is our house, after the last week, but of course it isn’t really. It is the floods in Windermere last year.
