It is Sunday and we are having a surprisingly busy night at work.
It is surprising because any customers at all on a Sunday evening are something of a novelty. Last week we had about four customers between us, and most Sundays are no different. This is because most people think that Monday mornings are quite bad enough without a hangover and an uncomfortable rumbling of indigestion, which is what happens to me when I drink too much these days.
This Sunday, however, I have kept rolling along quite nicely, and it has become quite late. This is the first time that I have had a spare few minutes to open my flat computer thing and write to you, not least because in between customers we are hanging about on the taxi rank exchanging stories about last night’s nuisances and offering completely unsolicited advice to Z, who is contemplating the purchase of a brand new taxi.
I would not want a brand new taxi no matter what. It would just be too upsetting. I do not wish to have any attachment at all to the vehicle in which I drive too fast down narrow country roads, reverse down tight, unfamiliar driveways in the middle of the night, and from which I argue with nasty, intoxicated customers. All of these adventures are far too fraught with peril for me to contemplate having thirty thousand pounds tied up in a happy outcome.
Z, however, quite likes the idea, and so I imagine that we will have a shiny new taxi on the rank in a few weeks.
I have got to purchase a new taxi in the next few months because mine is almost completely clapped out, certainly from the point of view of the licensing authority. Actually it is fairly clapped out from any point of view, and Mark is occupying spare oil rig moments with looking at potential new ones on eBay.
I have also been looking at eBay. I am looking at beautifully painted new china that might look nice on the Orient Express.
I have washed the last of the camper van blankets today. I shoved the dogs’ smelly sofa blanket in as well, and upset Roger Poopy very much by refusing to allow the dogs to get on the newly naked sofa. We had a disagreement about this when we came back from their walk and he instantly jumped on it with muddy wet paws, actually muddy wet everything, and was instantly hoofed off it to the accompaniment of horrified yelling.
I put one of the chairs on the sofa after that to prevent any more misfortunes, and he was very unhappy. He spent most of the day standing beside the sofa looking miserably between me and his very favourite, but now inaccessible, sleeping place, with huge, betrayed brown eyes.
I was implacable. I put his cushion on the floor in front of it by way of consolation, but he would not be consoled, so I went into the kitchen and ignored him.
I put the blanket back before I went to work, at which point he refused to get on it, turning his back on the sofa with wounded dignity practically oozing out of his ears. I ignored him again and went back into the kitchen, at which point he realised that he was wasting his emotions on my flinty heart, and jumped back on the sofa with a relieved sigh.
Rosie got up as well, and instantly dug her way underneath the blanket to lie on the sofa cushions anyway.
I think I may not be an animal lover.
I also think I am going to have an early night. I have just had a telephone call from a taxi company in Ambleside beseeching me to cover a job tomorrow morning. I don’t usually do mornings in any form at all, but it is fifty quid and they are desperate, so I have managed to combine a sense of helpful virtue with some handy extra income.
It will be at quarter past eight in the morning.
I can’t remember the last time I was awake at that hour.
I am not looking forward to it.
