This is going to be a shorter entry than usual, mostly because I have had a quiet sort of day, without lots of jolly adventures that I could recount for your amusement..
Also I am tired, and think I like the idea of an early night.
It has turned into a quiet sort of evening as well. As I write these words I am sitting pointlessly on the taxi rank looking around at a deserted main street.
It is not entirely pointless, because I have got a good book, a flask of tea and a sandwich.
It is a good job I have got these, because it is one o’ clock in the morning. I have been here since half past eight, and so far I have made £4.70.
The late start was because I took Lucy back to school. She has got to be there at around six. Now that she is in the Upper Sixth we can just slope in through the back gate without any of the nuisance of rushing up the drive and trying to squeeze in to a parking space in between the massed ranks of Range Rovers and Audis.
The groundsmen at Lucy’s school are almost less enthusiastic about the taxi than they are about the camper. They tolerate the camper, now they have realised that we are not part of the fairground, but they are for ever trying to insist that I take the taxi out of the car park and go round and park it in the special Taxi Waiting Area. They check on their lists, suspiciously, for the name of my taxi company, which of course is never there because when I am taking Lucy to school, I am a parent, not a taxi.
In any case, our taxi company is now actually called Pay More Wait Longer Taxis. That is its official name since we sold Windermere Taxis to somebody else. I wanted something that would be memorable, although I don’t think anybody has ever actually noticed. It looks ace on our letterhead.
We had a happy drive down together. Lucy has reached the difficult age where she has become tired of school, she is having a Teenage Rebellion. She explained that fortunately for me she was having this at school, not home, and added how inconsiderate of me it is to support her in everything she wants to do. She thinks that she will never grow up to write angst-laden novels about her Inner Depths Of Despair if everybody is perfectly nice to her all the time and actually she is contented and balanced. That is no way, she explained, to bring up a teenager.
I offered to turn the wifi off occasionally, in order to create a gulf of resentment and misunderstanding between us, but she declined. I was glad about this, the wifi is very useful and has got an impossible password if it accidentally goes off. It would be a total nuisance to be the sort of parent who requests that their children talk to them. I quite like mine in their bedrooms, appearing occasionally when they smell cooking sausages.
I was sad to part company, but we will see her again on Friday, which is the day of the dance show. I am looking forward to this.
It is now two o’clock in the morning. I have decided that £4.70 is enough for an evening’s takings. I am finishing this off in front of my computer, at home, with a calming glass of ginger wine.
I am sorry this is a bit short.
Wouldn’t you think that with nothing else to do all evening I could have done better than this?
Ah well.
