It has been a very full day.
I have had my visitors, and it has been the loveliest time.
The Weather Gods had gone out, so even though I had my washing in the back garden it didn’t rain at all, which meant that the Lake District actually seemed like a nice place to be.
I had actually set my alarm, although I had been so worried about not getting up in time that I woke up from a vaguely anxious dream about oversleeping about half an hour before it was due to go off, and hauled myself out of bed to dash out over the fells with the dogs, so that I could be sure of being back in time before my visitors arrived.
Of course I did make it back in plenty of time, and hurtled round doing last-minute jobs before they turned up.
I was just polishing my hat box when I heard noises outside the back gate and went to investigate. It was not the visitors. It was the neighbours clucking about somebody’s dustbin that has overflowed and made a shocking mess. The dustbin did not overflow by itself. It got too full to shut the lid, and then the crows did the rest.
Obviously I went and joined in, it is always splendid to do a bit of self-righteous grumbling, and whilst we were at it we all went and inspected – possibly for the fourth time now – the pallet that another, newly arrived neighbour has placed at the back of his house. He has screwed a traffic cone to it, with the intent of stopping people from parking in the bit of the alley which is behind his house.
This has made everybody very cross indeed. None of us especially want to park there, but it is not the point, and we have all hinted darkly at the dreadful midnight repercussions that should happen to him. Of course nobody will actually do anything, we are all too old and dull, but it is satisfying to imagine that we all might. In any case it is completely ineffectual. Somebody had pinched my parking space the other night so I just dragged it out of the way and parked there anyway.
There was a certain grim satisfaction about that.
We were all still hanging about saying unkind things about him when a smart silver car pulled into the alley and reversed, quickly and very neatly, down the narrow space past the builders’ trailer, which they had dumped to block the alley whilst they joined in the grumbling.
I was most impressed. I am so used to all people who do not drive taxis being utterly incompetent that I was lost in admiration for such a display of effortless capability, and of course it was my friend.
I was bursting with pride to see that he had grown up so wonderfully well. He explained afterwards that he is now a Manchester bus driver, which accounts for it, buses are huge and difficult to pilot so after that an ordinary sized car is just a breeze.
I told him excitedly that I am now a taxi driver, and we congratulated ourselves upon our glorious careers in public transport.
After that everything was just splendid. I remembered his wife when I saw her, and she was warm and chatty and didn’t at all mind us reminiscing boringly about people she had never met. My father used to teach him, and he remembered Numbers One and Two Daughters from the days when he was their Uncle Pukey and used to babysit for them, and so we talked one another’s ears off.
They could not stay very long, because of an elderly relative back at home, but when I waved them off I felt so very pleased with the world that I went out into the back alley and tidied up the overflowed rubbish. I did not touch the pallet with the traffic cone, but somebody else had dumped some pallets which have been cluttering up the alley for three weeks now, so I stole them and took them into the yard and sawed them up.
It has been a splendid day. The alley is clean and tidy. I have got a renewed pile of firewood. I have had a lovely time chatting and laughing, and remembering what it felt like to be a teenager. Also I have not got a single urgent job to do now, because I have done them all in preparation for the Visitors’ Day, and so…
…so tomorrow I will be able to get on with my dissertation.
PS. The Weather Gods came back at teatime. It rained so hard there was a small flood on the taxi rank.
