Bump holiday

We are not going to talk about the Bank Holiday Weekend.

Some things are just not up for discussion.

It is pointless saying this to any other taxi driver. Tact and sensitivity do not form part of the taxi driver’s arsenal of vocational skills. Saying: Do not discuss this because it is a distressing issue, might loosely be translated as: Point, howl with mirth and find every possible opportunity to mention it. Tell everybody.

Suffice to say that the disaster has now been resolved. My taxi now has a completely rebuilt front end and my sore face is recovering nicely, thank you very much. I can state with confidence here that I shall never be tempted to get that stupid facial treatment that inflates your lips until they look like discoloured sausages, and I would strongly advise you to avoid it as well. Fat lips are not nice.

Somehow Mark managed to scrape together all the necessary bits from an obliging scrap yard in Penrith on Bank Holiday Saturday, and he had just about finished reconstructing it by four in the morning when I was coming in from work. Obviously it had meant that he had not been able to go to work, so I took his taxi and tried to earn enough for us both. By the end of tomorrow I expect we will have all redundant engines, bumpers, headlights, radiators and bonnets cleared out of the alley at the back of the house, and by Christmas I imagine most of our neighbours will have forgotten about it.

All things considered it has been an unexpectedly difficult weekend, but one which, all things considered, we have decided to chalk up as a success. We are both here on the taxi rank, we are still more or less solvent, and life is all right.

Also I got all of my washing dry in the yard this afternoon. We have decided that probably we could not ask for much more from life.

We can always earn money next week.

Mark did most of the actual welding the taxi back together. I helped him a bit and then he got on with it by himself whilst I did everything else. We were both exhausted this morning, and aching as if we had had a head-on-collision with something immovable. I felt like this because I had. Mark felt like it because he had been fixing the results. We staggered around yawning and drinking coffee until the rest of life began to summon us, and then Mark went off to the farm to spray poison on his stinging nettles and to give the dogs an opportunity to belt around chasing rabbits, and I went upstairs to carry on writing my story.

The dogs have not exactly covered themselves in glory during the weekend either. Rosie has developed a gourmet’s appreciation of sheep poo. I can promise you that few things are more demoralising than struggling back in from a weekend of disasters, which could not possibly be worse, only to discover the kitchen covered in sheep-poo dog vomit.

We had a glass of wine on Saturday night. We do not usually drink on working nights, but we felt that we had earned it.

It is very lovely to feel that we can cope with these slings and arrows, even if they are wearisome whilst they are being outrageously misfortunate. We have been Stoic in the face of certain disaster, and two days later everything is all right again.

If that is not a Happy Ever After I don’t know what is.

Onwards and upwards.