I cried all over again.
Actually I cried so much that I had to get a clean handkerchief afterwards.
I do not know if it was the glorious music, or the terrible tragedy of the tiny Queen, shrouded in black and walking unsteadily alone, or the dreadful dignity of the family, in their measured pace behind the coffin, whilst the world stared at their grief.
I cried when the camera showed the prince’s carriage, with his flat cap and gloves placed neatly on the seat, because he will never wear them again. His flat cap was identical to Mark’s, a Scottish cashmere, although clearly Prince Philip had not worn his to the point where the Queen had had to repair the lining a couple of times, and scrape the paint splashes off.
I watched it on YouTube, because of course we don’t have the channels sort of television, whilst I was getting sandwiches ready for work. I discovered that it was a million times better like that, because there was no tiresome commentary. It was charmingly peaceful to watch without some solemn-voiced BBC idiot nattering away in the background, pointing out details that we already know, like which one was Prince Harry.
It was both wonderful and dreadfully sad. He was a splendid chap, and I am very sorry that he has gone.
Mark was doing some repairs for a neighbour, but he appeared halfway through to be sad with me, and to admire the exquisite beauty of the chapel, before buzzing off again and leaving me to flap around being late for work.
I was not just late because of watching funerals on YouTube. Mostly I was late because I had spent half of the day cleaning Mark’s wretched car.
He needed it to be clean so that he could come to work tonight, but of course could not clean it himself because of doing the neighbours’ repairs. Obviously it was my wifely duty to volunteer, which I did, with bad grace.
He had, a week or so ago, cleared it out a bit on his own account, and filled an entire wheelbarrow with the rubbish out of the boot. That did not, however, leave it exactly clean, in fact it was frankly filthy, with lots of things that you do not wish to inflict upon your customers, like spiders and more spiders, and splintered bits of fence posts, a couple of dubious-looking puddles, and a very great deal of dust, most of which had stuck to the sticky patches.
The Queen and Prince Philip had been married for seventy three years. That is years and years longer than us, probably because she did not ever need to volunteer to clean his taxi out for him.
He did, of course, have a taxi. It was a green Metrocab. We had one of those once. I do not think he used to wait on taxi ranks in it, although he might have done. He had three sons to fund through Gordonstoun, and he was an enterprising sort of chap.
In the end it was done, and I made a picnic to bring out to work, and left Mark to get on with it.
I like being back at work very much, as it turns out, even though we are not earning very much actual money. I had never realised how much I like just hanging about on the taxi rank, listening to the other taxi drivers telling one another what we all think about the world. Suddenly there are new topics of conversation in my little world, and new stories to be heard, and other people’s opinions to be contradicted. It is like a cool glass of water on a hot day, when you have hardly realised that you are desperately thirsty.
Oddly, it seems that my brain has lost interest in taxi driving, and I am suffering from unexpected and alarming memory lapses. I have to think terribly hard when people tell me where they are going, and sometimes I can hardly remember at all, it is as if I have never heard of Queen’s Drive, or Braithwaite Fold, or Crag Brow. Obviously I have heard of them, and I have been there not just dozens, but hundreds and hundreds of times.
Nevertheless, it feels as though my taxi-driver encyclopaedia of local trivia has been shoved in a box of junk and sold on eBay. It is the most peculiar sensation, to feel oneself flailing for knowledge that was once as familiar as the alphabet.
I hope it is because of having had half a year of house arrest, and not because I have gone prematurely senile.
Have a picture of a newly-watered conservatory.
