We had a busy night.
We had a splendidly busy night, certainly after last week and the depressing gloom of the first few post-apocalyptic days.
We have made some money.
Everything is going to be all right.
I have been secretly agonising about money this week, because Mark’s taxi needs to be re-licensed. This is a costly sort of affair, usually involving a few weeks of stashing tenners away beforehand, or alternatively paying the council with a cheque and hoping that they will take their time before somebody gets round to popping over to the bank with it.
I am not worrying any more. We have earned enough to pay for it.
It is not busy in the way that a warm Saturday night in July might be busy during a normal year, but it was busy enough. There were people here, and even though the taxi rank was crawling with starving taxi drivers, I think that everybody must have taken enough money at least to put another tank of fuel in their car. We staggered home and sagged with joyful, solvent relief.
Hence I was astonished to discover that I woke up this morning with a headache.
I have not had a headache for months.
I have not had a single headache during lockdown, not even after occasional reprehensible adventures when I have drunk most of a bottle of Asda’s cheap red wine whilst staying up too late and eating salt and vinegar crisps. Even then I have not had a headache, well-deserved as one might have been.
This one was awful. It started at the back of my neck and ran over the top of my head in a tight cord, making my forehead crease and my eyes ache.
The inescapable conclusion was that it was taxi-related.
It was not because of stress, because although almost all of my customers were cross, it was about stupid pub rules, and queueing in the street, and not being allowed to dance with one another. None of them were cross with me, and they were all so pleased at having a taxi driver who concurred with them so wholeheartedly, most of them tipped as well.
I wondered if I had a leaky exhaust, which is entirely possible since my taxi is an ancient bargain-basement heap of junk, but Mark pointed out that I have been having headaches for the last three taxis at least, and it was unlikely that they were all pumping lethal fumes through the air vents.
Actually it isn’t that unlikely.
In the end we concluded that the problem is probably caused by sitting in a funny-shaped seat. I looked it up later on the mighty Internet, and it said that taxi drivers do indeed get headaches, and it is because their spines get stuck in peculiar contorted driver’s-seat shapes. It added that the ones who have got the worst headaches have been working for more than six years and work nights.
It went on with some of the usual medical nagging about not smoking, drinking or being fat, but I ignored these bits, because NHS websites always tell you this no matter what is wrong with you. Even when you look up ‘fungus between the toes’ they are still filled with dire warnings about obesity.
They rumble on with sermons proclaiming that the very least that you should do to aid your own recovery would be to stop eating so many cakes and keep a diary of your alcohol consumption, because you might be surprised, you know.
As you know, readers, I keep a diary of my alcohol consumption, and my occasional bouts of ill-health surprise none of us.
Since have got no intention whatsoever of giving up wine and cake it looks as though am just going to have to put up with it. The Peppers had donated some rather magnificent chocolate cake to keep us going at work, so I ate that and took some headache tablets.
I might even have a glass of wine later.
I haven’t taken a picture. Have one of a black currant bush.
