Fifties

I should be at work.

There is no reason for this uncomfortable guilty feeling other than that Oliver is at work and Mark is at work, and I am not.

I thought that I would go out as soon as I had finished the housework. I thought that I would get all of the jobs done, spend an hour writing my story, and then rush off out to work and earn some cash.

The problem was that I had just about got to the story-writing bit of things, not actually started, you understand, just thought that it was about time that I did, and then Mark called to say that he would be home in about an hour.

There did not seem to be any point at all then, since there wouldn’t be time for me to do a single taxi fare before Mark came home.

The problem is that usually I would spend all day getting things done and then go out to work in the evening. I do not like driving a taxi during the day time. Nobody is drunk, they all expect you to be friendly, and it is not dark so they can see if you have cleaned your taxi lately.

Mark is working all day and does not want to go out to work again in the evening. Neither does he want me to go out to work. When he gets home he likes to have dinner and tell me about his day.

I feel as though I have been whizzed through a time warp back to nineteen fifty.

In fact it seems that I rather like driving a taxi, especially at night. Daytime customers all want to whitter on about the terrible cost of stamps and the difficulty of getting an appointment with the GP. Night time customers tell you about their sexual misadventures, and sometimes they punch one another. Night times are far more interesting.

I quite like housework as well, that is, I like living in a house where the cobwebs have largely been removed and where there is cake soaked in brandy in the tin on the dresser. I do not like doing it very much, although it can be helped along by a story to listen to, or perhaps some energetic music.

After my activities of the day, our house has an apple-and-blackberry cheesecake for pudding tonight, a clean and well-watered conservatory, a full stack of firewood and some nicely-swept floors, a chicken cooking in the oven and clean clothes tidily folded in all the drawers. Some of them have even been mended.

I told you I am revisiting the nineteen fifties.

The apple-and-blackberry cheesecake was made with the end of last year’s blackberry puree in the bottom of the freezer, and was a request from Oliver. He is going to eat beef burgers for his dinner, cooked by the chef at work, but he likes home-made puddings. Mark likes home made puddings as well but spoils them for himself by worrying about whether they might make him fat.

I am fat already and so I don’t care.

Mark is not very well, and so will not be hanging about at work tonight. We had a cold a few weeks ago, and his has left him with a dreadful cough and some self-pity. I had a cough as well, but mine got better quickly, probably dissolved in Salford Rum.

If you have never tried Salford Rum I can recommend it. The spiced sort is mixed with vanilla, which is a touch of genius, although expensive. I tried mixing vanilla with ordinary rum, which was cheaper, to see if it would work just as well, but it doesn’t, so don’t bother. According to the august Daily Telegraph, vanilla is the world’s favourite smell. In my case this is more or less true once it is added to rum, and it is excellent. We liked it so much that I put it on Amazon Regular Order but we have just had our electricity bill and so I am going to have to cancel it.

Ah well.

I have got a little time left before Mark returns and so I am going to give my story-writing a go.

See you tomorrow.