I have spent much of the day writing my story.

This was not an entirely rewarding experience, because it would not go right, and in the end I had to give up whilst the fairies were still having an unresolved criminal investigation and consequent show trial.

It was more entertaining than writing to the council, but that is the best that could be said for it.

I did not write to the council, because I thought it might be wiser to wait until I felt comfortable using moderate language. I am very cross indeed with them and shall be sending a letter of complaint directly to our honoured Member of Parliament, who will very probably put it directly into the dustbin as soon as he sees my name on the top.

I am not even going to think about it. Even those very few words have increased my blood pressure, and I can feel myself beginning to incubate a stress-related illness even as I have written them.

In fact it has been a generally happy day. Mark went off to install rural broadband in the sunshine, and I took the dogs for an amble up the fell.

Few activities are pleasanter than wandering about the Lake District in the autumn sunshine, contemplating the misadventures of imaginary fairies.

I expect their adventures will go right sooner or later.

I hope so, because I am trying very hard to write something that I might be able to sell, in order eventually to become JK Rowling and be banned from Twitter.

I have got my name on Twitter but have never really grasped what it is about, and most certainly would not bother expressing my opinions therein. If anybody wants to know what I think about the world they can jolly well book a taxi down to the bottom end of the lake and pay twenty quid for the privilege.

With this putative success in mind, we have got an extra University class this week. We will be doing an entire day of creatively writing on Sunday, with a guest speaker, and I am looking forward to it very much.

It is not exactly an entire day. It is a couple of hours in the morning followed by another couple of hours in the afternoon, and fortunately it does not start until eleven. This is good, because we will be working on Saturday night, and I would not like to be so late that I am obliged to attend in my dressing gown.

It turns out that I am not the only taxi driver on the course, so probably I will be in good company. Perhaps taxi drivers are just good at making things up.

Talking of taxi driving, I would just like to mention here how very nice it is to be driving a taxi which no longer has an irritating squeak. I had grown used to the squeak, but it was tiresome, and it is lovely to be driving in tranquillity.

Not only has Mark fixed the squeak, he has fixed the headlights so that I can see where I am going, and the heater, so that I can warm myself up. Both of these defects have been profoundly irritating for much of the last year.

The headlights have had a faulty connection, and had become so dim that it was a jolly good job I knew where I was going, because otherwise I would have become a sort of inverse werewolf, only able to come out at full moon. Then a few weeks ago Mark fixed one, which was a much appreciated, but became distracted before he could get around to the other, and so it has had to wait.

This week he has fixed the other, and the results are nothing short of miraculous. Together with four-speed heat and the absence of squeak, my taxi has practically become executive transport, and I am feeling very pleased with my working life. 

It is still so quiet that mostly it is sitting on the taxi rank life, but tha is all right.

It is giving me lots of time to think about fairies.

LATER NOTE: Just as an afterthought, can anybody tell me why the past tense of Speak is Spoken, but the past tense of Squeak is not Squoken?

It jolly well ought to be I think.

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