I have still not managed to get the NHS app to work properly.
I have tried and tried to sign in, but despite my attempts, it will not remember my password, won’t keep my details on record, and persists in wondering whether I am signing in as a doctor or a nurse.
I am not very worried about this because the email said that it would take a few days before their technical department sorted their lives out.
All the same, it must be getting close to zero hour, when Our Country Needs Us, and so Mark has been making our taxis ready in preparation for the thrilling moment when we are Summoned To The Cause.
This was important because the poor taxis had deteriorated somewhat. Regular readers might recall that the exhaust fell off mine some time ago. It has been sitting in the shed ever since, because it turns out that an exhaust is not an essential feature of a taxi.
Today Mark dug it out and polished the rust off it and welded it back on.
He says that he his going to fix the squeaky noise and the clunk whilst he is at it.
Happily, of course there is nobody in the holiday house next door, and in fact the owners have requested that we keep cars parked in the driveway so that it looks as though people are living there. Presumably this is in case any desperate city refugees appear in Windermere looking for a squat.
Anyway, my taxi is now parked in next door’s driveway with a new exhaust. I don’t mean a real new exhaust, obviously, I mean the old exhaust which has been given a new lease of life, as is the way with clapped-out taxis.
I am very glad that he is doing this. We have not used the taxis for ages now, and they are beginning to crumble into dusty heaps. I would not like to turn up to a medical emergency in the sort of taxi where you have to have a business card stuck in the dashboard in order to hide the red lights that say STOP, or even just the sort where you have to turn the radio up so that nobody notices the clunks.
I did not help with the taxis, in fact I stayed some distance away, most especially because he filled the fire extinguisher up first. This is usually a good sign that he is concerned that something could ignite or explode, and so it is a good idea to be somewhere else.
In the event nothing ignited or exploded, although he did burn a hole in his new boots, which I was cross about, I do wish he would wear his old ones for welding, there are already lots of holes in those.
Instead, the children and I took the dogs for a daily-exercise amble up the fell. You can see in the picture that this is really not a hardship. We are the most fortunate people in the whole world at the moment. I am not sure how to adequately direct my gratitude on this subject, and so I keep lighting vaguely appreciative candles to the universe, which generally incorporates all of the Gods, the NHS, Boris Johnson and Sainsbury’s.
I went to Sainsbury’s afterwards, and had the unexpected joy of bumping into some taxi drivers. Obviously I mean bumping into them at a two-metre distance, because I am being very careful to observe all social distancing directives. I feel it is incumbent on me to do this now that I am the parent of a police officer, I ought to set a good example. Also a two-metre distance is a jolly sight better than being in a taxi where some customers smell so dreadful that you have to drive with your head sticking out of the window. Nobody has ever mentioned this, so perhaps smelly people just think it is normal.
I was actually very happy indeed to see them, how magnificent to see friends and hear their news, even if their news is only that their taxis are sitting uselessly at the side of the road as well as ours. Nevertheless, it was a joy to see them, to smile and talk and feel a part of the wide world again. I felt as happy as if we had had a night together at the karaoke singing Grease Megamix and drinking Jaeger Bombs, and probably happier because of the absence of hangover.
Note to them if they are reading this.
We are not going to do another night at the karaoke ever. I thought I might die on the morning after the last one. It was one of the nastiest awakenings of my entire life.
Well, maybe just one when the lockdown is over.
