When we came downstairs this morning the visiting dog got out of its basket and wagged its tail.
Not only did it not growl or try to attack our feet, it was pleased to see us.
It was not exactly mutual but we pretended it was.
Mark did not go to work today but we got up early all the same, because we needed a good length of day in which to facilitate completely dismantling his taxi and rebuilding it from the ground up, it is becoming the Steve Austin of the taxi world.
For those readers who are far too young to know anything about Steve Austin he was the Bionic Man of the nineteen seventies, who was rebuilt with car engine parts after some devastating accident shattered his home-grown ones. After that he could run at high speeds and marry Farrah Fawcett-Majors, who was a Charlie’s Angel.
Such classic television, alas for its passing.
Anyway, obviously Mark’s taxi will not marry Farrah Fawcett-Majors, but other than that it is being rebuilt with the shiniest new technology. In this case it is a second-hand turbo and a body control module purchased from yet another slightly shifty-sounding Indian chap in a back-street garage somewhere in Bradford. I am quite sure they will be fine, what could possibly go wrong.
He took the dogs off to the farm first thing, in order to cut some firewood and get them out from under my feet whilst I swept and mopped and did the morning flea-round-up. He said they had a very nice time running free, except the visiting dog, which ran free for five minutes and then got fed up of running into things, and sloped off back to the car to sleep, odiferously, in the driver’s seat. It was ejected and obliged to sleep in the boot, much to its disappointment.
I took Oliver off to work. He has returned to kitchen-portering, which suits him better than being a waiter. The work is considerably harder and more boring but the pub has employed a jolly team of the usual sort of rascals found in kitchens, and he is relieved of the necessity of being polite to anybody.
I am now on the taxi rank by myself, apart from all of the other taxis, obviously. Mark is still bashing away at his car and so I shoved a plate of pie and chips in the microwave for him and left him to it. This meant that I could make a taxi picnic of anything I liked, so I am having raw carrots and olives and feta cheese. I like these. I am not trying to become thinner. It is such a pity, most of my natural preferences are for gloriously health-giving things like salads and smoked fish and fruit, it is an absolute nuisance that the remainder of my preferences are for red wine, chocolate and fudge.
I have had a day of housewifely virtue, and have got all of the sheets and towels nicely dry in the sunshine, what marvellous good fortune, that is two Mondays in a row. Tomorrow is for baking, and after that I will be free to write more of my story, in between taking Oliver to the orthodontist, and his driving lessons start next week as well.
The dog’s owners telephoned this afternoon, presumably in response to my countless answering machine messages. They have agreed to fund a trip to the vet for more eye cream, which is a jolly good thing, because I am not forking out for it even if it is wagging its tail at us.
It spent the afternoon following me about, in the manner of the newly-besotted. This is tiresome because it can’t see where it is going and keeps falling over things. After it fell off the back doorstep I lifted it up and lugged it firmly back to its basket, where it lay, resignedly, and waited until I came back, which startled it so much it almost jumped out of the basket.
It is never going to be a nice dog, but I am growing less inclined to shoot it.
