Holiday’s end

Lucy has gone.

We were all very sad about this, and everybody was surprised to find that there was a little bit of dust blown in their eyes, but it had to be. She packed all of her things into her car and disappeared over the horizon, and our lovely summer holiday is over.

Mark goes back to installing rural broadband tomorrow, and I am sitting on the taxi rank.

Even Oliver went off around the village looking for work, because of needing pocket money for next term. He was not terribly enthused at the prospect, but nevertheless came back ten minutes later with a start date of tomorrow afternoon, unemployment not being a problem here in Windermere.

He is going to work in a pub washing up and serving coffee. I am amused by this. The pub in question is one of the less middle-class venues and I think it will be good for him to have something with which he can contrast his Gordonstoun existence.

I do not think he has ever washed anything up in his life. I might have to give him a quick demonstration before he goes.

It took us pretty much all day to get to that point. We worked last night, as you know, and when it was over, at two in the morning, Mark and I drove off down the motorway to leave his taxi at the scrap yard. This seemed to us to be a very much better idea than fighting our way through the Sunday-afternoon tourists-going-home traffic, especially on a hot day, and so we shot down the cool, deserted motorway in the tranquillity of the night, and when we saw the sweltering crowds today, we felt that it had been a sensible idea.

We had thought we might give the car to Lucy, but it is such an impossible heap of junk now that we decided we had better not. Her own bashed about, ten-year-old car is in rather better condition.

Mark was not exactly sad to lose it, but it felt peculiar. He was not due to collect his new one until this afternoon, and so there was a gap in the middle during which he was no longer a car owner.

In the end we did not get home until almost four, and the daylight was beginning to creep through the windows when we got to bed.

Hence we did not wake up until lunchtime, and by the time we had emptied the dogs and had a last, leisurely breakfast with the children, it was time to go to work.

We thought we had better omit the single malt element of breakfast under the circumstances, just to reassure the responsibly-minded among you.

I dropped Mark off to collect his new taxi on my way out to work. This was exciting because we had not seen it and knew nothing about it. This did not matter in the least, because it was a taxi, goes and stops, which is more or less all that we need it to do. In any case, we trust Lakeside Taxis, who do not drive their cars until they are completely clapped out, unlike us.

We did not even know what colour it was.

It turned out to be silver, and very smart and shiny.

It even had half a tank of fuel in it. This was not because of any especially generous goodwill towards us, we had already bought it for little more than its scrap value, but because the last driver to use it had thoughtfully filled the tank.

This is an unusual behaviour for a taxi driver. The drivers do not pay for the fuel, but despite that, when we had lots of taxis we found that nobody ever liked going to the petrol station, and would do everything they could to avoid it. The night drivers would helpfully leave cars with the fuel light on ready for the school runs in the morning, and the day drivers would do the same for drivers coming on to shift half an hour before the petrol station closed.

A driver willingly putting fuel in the tank without being threatened first must have been something of a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

We were very pleased anyway, and Mark is driving it even now as I speak.

LATER NOTE.

I became distracted there.

Mark is pleased with the car, he says it goes very fast and has a good turning circle.

Oliver says that he can wash up. He has learned it at school.

Hurrah for education. A preparation for a future career.

Have a picture of Roger Poopy and his brother this morning.