Unlikely

I have been Being Creative.

It was raining too hard for Mark to feel any longing at all to go and crawl under the camper van. He has got to do this sooner or later, because he has got to take out the non-functional starter motor. This needs to be returned to Autoparts and replaced with one that does not need the application of a hammer before it will start the engine.

The replacement one is on the table in the conservatory, and it is unlovely as a domestic ornament, and so I am quite enthusiastic for its relocation, but obviously not in weather like this. We looked out of the window over the rim of our coffee cups this morning, and knew that Today was Not The Day.

Thus inspired, Mark offered to do the day’s boring jobs, like hanging up washing and creating a taxi picnic, all by himself.

This was partly so that I would not interfere, in a self-important and irritating way. We both know that I do this, and I suspect both of us wish that I wouldn’t. Also it was a kindly gesture, so that I could loaf about all day, painting and writing things.

I say ‘all day’, but actually we didn’t get up until lunchtime, and we had to go to work this evening, so it wasn’t very much of a day.

All the same it was sincerely and joyfully appreciated. It is always rather splendid when somebody else makes dinner and it is full of surprises. I don’t mean scary surprises, like slices of ham when I am expecting a piece of cheese, but nice surprises, like having more carrots than I was expecting, or that all the olives are black ones.

We have been married for a very long time now, and so Mark knows exactly what sort of surprises are nice ones, and which ones might make me flap about. This means that I can perfectly trust him when it comes to organising dinners, and more so because he is not encumbered by dutiful ideas about what we are supposed to eat because it is good for us.

The result of this has been happiness all round. I have had a day of painting things and writing things, followed by a nice dinner. Mark has had a day of not getting wet, also followed by a nice dinner.

He wants to spend tomorrow in his shed, building his nuclear fusion machine. I do not mind at all about this, because I have had such a happy day today, but also because tomorrow I will be attending my university course all day.

This does not mean that I will be going anywhere. I will be at my desk, listening to people talking out of the computer and occasionally fending off the dogs, who like to join in when interesting things are happening. 

We have got to read lots of pieces of one another’s writing before it starts. I like doing this very much, but it is a bit tiresome because they have only arrived in my computer tonight, and I am trying to read them in between customers.

Also other taxi drivers keep coming up to me and telling me the things that they want me to write in my complaining letters to the council.

I already know what they want me to write to the council, because we all think much the same, but they want to feel that somebody is listening to them. It certainly won’t be the council who does this, and so it has got to be me.

Not all taxi drivers are very good at writing letters, which is why I am doing it. I am good at writing letters, but they are all better at fixing cars than I am, and so probably it balances out.

I have got to think of the two most unlikely people who might have a romance before a class about writing for Mills & Boon on Monday. At the moment the most unlikely seem to me to be Council Official and Taxi Driver, but I am not sure that this will exactly grab the public imagination and so in between customers I am going to have to think of something else.

I am going to go and do just that.