It is getting very late and I have only just started to write to you.
Somehow the evening on the taxi rank seems to have been very busy, what with one thing and another, even, once or twice, with people wanting taxis.
I was pleased about this because we are hoping for a night off tomorrow, and then another one the night after. What idle hedonism, how I am looking forward to it.
I have not been writing on these pages because I have been occupied in writing a lengthy and pedantic letter to Lucy’s landlord. This was on the advice of a kindly old friend who rang up today to offer some helpful advice, for which I was jolly grateful, I can tell you. He has himself managed to amass a small nest-egg by means of renting out flats to degenerate waifs and strays, and he said that the estate agents were definitely indulging in a spot of sharp practice.
It is so sharp that their fingers must be bleeding and I am quite impressed by their capacity to generate income from the least-promising sources. I think I should have considered a career in estate agency, you do not even have to have paid attention at school.
In between composing the sort of politely studied paragraphs that make people think you are a tedious irritation, I have been sewing name labels into school uniform and talking to taxi drivers.
One taxi driver got a fare to London yesterday.
This was not a booked fare. Somebody just wandered on to the taxi rank and got into his taxi, saying: Take me to London, so he did.
He made a very lot of money and we have not seen him since. This is not because he is likely to be kidnapped, it will be because in the manner of all taxi drivers, he will not be back until he has spent it.
I can hardly imagine anybody being weird enough to kidnap a taxi driver, we are just not desirable even to the most unbalanced of nutters, and are fated to a life apart.
I will get to the Pearly Gates, and St. Peter will look at me and shout: Has anybody in here ordered a taxi?
We sighed happily over the prospect of a real-live fare to London, because of course it might one day happen to any of us.
In fact I had a stroke of taxi-driving good fortune tonight, because I got a job to Oxenholme Station in Kendal, and then for the very first time ever, got a job coming back to Windermere again.
I have never yet managed to do that, and I felt so very pleased with myself I nearly stopped for the night and went home for a celebratory glass of wine, but of course I didn’t.
I would jolly well like to stop soon, because we stayed up too late last night. We came home to find that the children had put Amazon Prime on and were watching somebody called Jeremy Clarkson trying to become a farmer.
I have heard of Jeremy Clarkson, because he makes several appearances in Piers Morgan’s diaries, mostly when they have come to fisticuffs, but I have not seen him before, and was intrigued to discover that he did not look at all the way I had expected. That is, actually I had seen pictures of him before, but had never associated his face and his name together, and felt quietly satisfied that I had tied up a little loose end.
He has spent more on farming than possibly all of the farmers in the Lake District put together. Last night he was in the process of acquiring some sheepWe all watched this with great interest, most especially Mark, who knows one breed of sheep from another, and who tried very hard, when the children were small, to teach them how to tell them apart. Unsurprisingly they had no great interest, and I confess that despite several amateur attempts at sheep-farming during my career, I am no better.
Jeremy Clarkson is not very good at it either, but has presumably been saved from disasters by having a massive salary from Amazon Prime.
We all watched with great interest, until long past our bedtime, and hence were tired this morning. We thought, romantically, that perhaps one day we would have some sheep of our own again.
As Jeremy Clarkson observed, they do taste very splendid.
Maybe not today.
Have another picture of the conservatory.
