Night In

We have had the happiest evening, and I might have become a bit intoxicated.

We have not gone to work. Mark cooked dinner, and we have had two glasses of wine. I had not remembered to arrange a pudding,  so we washed it all down with a glass of Bailey’s Irish Cream.

This was all right, because there was nobody looking to see if we were middle class or not, so we could drink anything we liked.

We had pasta cooked with bacon and pesto and cream for dinner. This does not sound very exciting but is in fact my most favourite dinner of all dinners, and I could have carried on long after I had cleaned my plate, not because I was hungry any more, but because it was so very nice.

Eating is one of my favourite things.

Almost better than that, we went into the living room and watched a film.

It is ages and ages since we have done this, and it was an absolute joy. We sat in our armchairs, glass of wine in hand, with our feet on the coffee table and the dogs on our knees. They are not allowed on the furniture but an exception is made for moments when somebody says that they can get on their knee. Usually this is Lucy, who is a dog-pushover.

Roger Poopy leaps up in one self-assured bound. His father is never quite sure that consent has really been given, and dithers about on the floor, hopping anxiously from one paw to the other until I have reassured him enough for him to be convinced.

He never lasts very long because it is not comfortable with his arthritis, but he likes the idea and always gives it a go before the creaky joints are too much and he has to retreat back to his cushion. He likes his cushion. It is predictable and does not fidget or get drunk or shout things at the television.

The film we watched was brilliant. We have been meaning to watch it for ages, it was the Alan Bennett film about the Lady in the Van. If you have not watched it then do give it a go, it was splendid, and I enjoyed it with my whole soul.

Truly there is no better way to spend an evening.

After it had finished another nice thing happened.

A youthful taxi driver came round with a petition for us to sign about the fare increase.

This is a marvellous thing.

The last time the council put the taxi rates up was in 2014, and only then after we had formed a union and fought very hard for two years. Trying to get taxi drivers to unite is almost impossible. By our very nature we are competing pirates, and do not trust one another.

When I was first driving taxis, which is a very, very long time ago, it was very wise not to trust other taxi drivers. They got into fights with one another and with the customers, let people’s tyres down and were generally scary. Quite a few were hardened thugs with broken noses and scars from their days in Borstal. When I was first driving taxis they would shout at customers not to get in with me, and would imply that I was less than perfectly virtuous. This was not personal to me. It was to scare me away from becoming competition, which fortunately did not work.

Most of them are dead now, but not before I learned lots of things from them about how to be very scary myself.

Today’s taxi drivers are not nearly so savage. They are young and lots of them are foreign, and they hardly get into fights at all. They have got handy skills that once were completely absent from the taxi rank, like being able to read and write, and tonight it would appear that they have put aside their differences to fight the council.

I am so pleased that they have done it. It has made me feel more cheerful than I have felt for ages. I told them what I had learned from my own days of arguing with the council, and they listened and went off to petition hard for our cause.

The council had jolly well better watch out.