We had such a pleasingly lucrative night at work last night, that our pleasure in it was only mildly offset by the discovery of a puddle of vomit in the back of my taxi this morning.
I do not know who left it there. I would, however, like to observe that if you are looking at these pages to discover a gentle love for and confidence in, the human race, you would probably be best advised to go elsewhere. I do not have the sort of employment that makes me fond of people, especially youths.
Whoever it was had been eating kebabs. They also, probably, complained about the fare. I can be quite certain about this, because everybody did.
If you want to be popular in a taxi, follow these simple steps.
- Tip well
- Don’t try and be amusing
- Tip well
- Don’t be sick
- Tip well
- Don’t argue about the fare
- Tip well.
It is not difficult.
It was generally agreed amongst Ambleside taxi drivers that the best job ever had been when one of us was engaged to take a corpse down to London.
He came back very pleased. He had made lots of money, and his passenger had not complained at all. They had not argued, tried to mess about with the steering wheel, tried to change the channel on the radio or insisted that the windows were closed. Better still, they had been packaged in plastic, had not trodden in dog poo, had not failed to wash for the last fortnight, and did not try to smoke unnoticed in the back.
Such passengers are the stuff dreams are made of.
We did not mind anyway, because the Valentine’s magic had worked, and people had appeared in the Lake District in their thousands. Most of them had got drunk and wanted a taxi back to their hotel. This is a happy outcome to any Saturday night.
We slept late this morning, and then sat very contentedly in bed for ages, drinking coffee and contemplating the brief mitigation of our financial crisis. It is a relief to remember that it is actually possible to earn a living driving a taxi after all. There are still some grim weeks of winter left to go, but not many now, and this Cupid-inspired bonus weekend has come just at the right time.
Once we emerged, Mark went off next door to do some plumbing for our next door neighbour, who is not one of nature’s little handymen. We never mind doing anything to help him, because he is generous with his wine, and has never, ever complained about anything we do, no matter how awful. Even the time when we set the chimney on fire and the firemen squirted gallons and gallons of water down his chimney as well, just because they could. He sighed a little and contemplated his flooded living room, and said that it had needed a bit of a clean anyway.
I stayed here and helped Oliver with his homework. He is less than enthusiastic about this, and fortunately was rescued quite quickly by the timely arrival of his best friend Harry.
We have not seen Harry for ages. He has been whisked off by his parents to live in Kendal, and is no longer handily based in the house opposite. This does not matter at all because of the wonders of online gaming, and we have quite often heard Harry’s voice bellowing from the screen in the upstairs bedroom as they slaughter zombies from their separate lives, together in the magnificent cyber-world.
He has become enormous, by which I mean truly enormous. He is taller than me, and broad and solid. There is not an ounce of fat on him, but from his huge size ten feet up to the top of his head, he occupies a great deal of space. He has got a lot further to go yet, his family are all well over six feet tall.
He laughed and said how small our house had become. Then he and Oliver hoovered out the tuck drawer and retreated upstairs, where they have been contentedly engaged in games of slaughter and mass destruction ever since.
I could hear them laughing from downstairs.
I suppose they will grow up into youths who drink and get in taxis.
Ah well.
Have a picture of Windermere.
