So far I have not been able to think of a way of making ‘sitting on the taxi rank sewing name labels in clothes’ sound interesting.
This is the way I have occupied most of today, and I think I can confirm that it has not been thrilling.
There have been some interesting moments. I have turned up a couple of sleeves and trouser legs as well.
Those were the highlights.
It is very quiet.
It was very quiet last night as well.
There are a lot of taxi drivers sitting here.
Partly this is because there are many fewer trains than usual.
For some reason the dozens and dozens of trains that used to arrive at twenty minute intervals in Windermere during the holiday season have been reduced to one every two hours. This, we are told, firmly and inexplicably, is due to Bat Flu.
This must be quite helpful to Bat Flu, because when they do turn up they are hot, sticky and packed.
However it is not very helpful to taxi drivers. There is no point whatsoever in sitting on the train station all day and night, in the hope that you might get a customer once every two hours, so all of the station taxi drivers have come down here to sit with us.
They are all very cross about it because they give the station five hundred pounds every year to be allowed to sit there.
I do not like sitting on the train station, even if I had five hundred pounds that I did not want. The taxi drivers up there all sit together in the middle and gossip. They are together far too much and are not very nice about one another.
All the same, it is a handy place to be if you want to use the loo in the supermarket, and indeed, Nipping To Booths was for years a euphemism among taxi drivers for going to have a poo. Thus we would tell one another that some vile drunk had gone to Booths in the churchyard, or that we were just taking the dog out to Nip To Booths.
I do not think Booths ever realised this, which is probably just as well.
Anyway, the station taxi drivers have all descended to join the hoi polloi on the taxi rank next to the pier, which means that they can no longer Nip To Booths but have to visit the public lavatories next to the tourist information centre. These cost fifty pence, which at the moment is about an hour’s takings, so taxi drivers take a newspaper or length of stick with them. This needs to be long enough to reach to be waved in front of the distant sensor and open the barrier as a small act of charity.
You cannot do any of these things at night when every single public convenience is inconveniently locked, and so presumably the taxi drivers who do not live here are obliged to nip into Booths in the churchyard, like everybody else.
How fascinating and informative these pages can be. I am sure you are quite gripped.
Perhaps you would rather have heard about my sewing after all.
This has taken on some urgency because of Oliver going off to visit his friend next week, and all trouser modifications need to be completed by tomorrow evening.
Mark is not here at all. He has joined the Peppers and is alternately helping them fix their camper van and fixing ours ready for MOT Part Three on Monday.
I am going to take it back to the garage tomorrow, which will probably take most of the day.
It is a good thing I have got all of this time on the taxi rank for modifying trousers.
Have a picture of the dog.
