I took Mark’s taxi for an MOT today.
It failed. I tell you that at the beginning in order to preserve you from any anxiety. I do not like not knowing what happens at the end and always look at that bit first when I am reading a good book. I am sure you will appreciate not being kept in suspense. These pages are not intended to be of the thrilling mystery genre.
We take the taxis to a garage in Kendal which is broadminded about what makes an acceptable taxi. Taxi MOTs are a bit more complicated than normal MOTs, they happen a lot more often for a start, and a really awkward MOT inspector can fail your taxi for being dirty if he likes. We used to go to a garage around the corner, but they got a new MOT inspector who failed one of the taxis because it had neither a parcel shelf nor a dog guard in the boot, mostly because we had taken that bit off for something and never quite put it back. Anyway, obviously we never went there again, that will jolly well show him.
I like our current MOT garage, most especially because when they repaired a taxi for me when Mark was working in Aberdeen, the mechanic told me afterwards that it was reasonable for the brakes to stop working after they had repaired the handbrake, you could hardly expect both, and most women would not make such a fuss.
In the spirit of filling the unforgiving minute, I went to Morrisons for some shopping whilst it was in the garage. I did this instead of loafing around reading a good book, which I would very much have preferred to do, and then felt smug with myself for being so righteous. I have got a good book at the moment, it is about a financial apocalypse in America and is improbably dreadful. I wanted to carry on reading it because when I read the last couple of pages to see what happened in the end, it didn’t make much sense, so now I want to know how they all got there.
It is an ace story but you have got to ignore the small detail that lots of things in it just wouldn’t happen like that. Nobody pops round and shoots their neighbours so that they can have their house instead, or ties their mad wife to the chair, not even on the worst council estates. Not even in America.
Anyway, I did not read my book. I should have left it in the car, and stupidly I didn’t. I put it in my handbag instead so that I could read it when I got back if there was time, which it turned out there wasn’t.
I regretted putting the book in my handbag. It turned out that Morrisons was a lot further away from the garage than it looks when you are just in a car, and it took me ages to get there. I did not at all mind this, it was a sunny day, and there were lots of houses on the way, which gave me a good opportunity to gaze curiously into their gardens as I passed, which I rather liked. Some people had got very nice gardens, and I would have liked to hang about a bit and have a really thorough look, but I thought perhaps I had better not.
It was nice to walk in the sunshine, and breathe in the lovely soapy smells of the blossom, and I strolled along smiling at people and feeling as though I was being very virtuous.
Obviously when I got into Morrisons there were all sorts of nice things on offer, and I filled my shopping bags without a thought to transporting it back again, which turned out to be a mistake.
I was already carrying a handbag full of book and glasses, not to mention all the rest of the clutter, and a couple of shopping bags full of soap powder and sausages turned out to be hard work.
The journey back was a jolly lot slower than the journey there. I had to keep stopping and pretending to admire the view, and the handles of the shopping bags made red and white marks all over my fingers.
When I eventually staggered into the garage yard the car was there with a FAIL notice that said in bold letters that the car was too dangerous to be driven.
This was not my finest hour.
It said that the wires were showing through the tyre and that it was too dangerous to be on the road.
I rang Mark in a panic and said that I couldn’t drive home. He said to drive home anyway. I said that I had got a FAIL notice from the garage that said I shouldn’t.
I could hear him rolling his eyes on the other end of the phone. He said that I was in a garage, and that I should just ask them to put the spare on.
I flapped over to the mechanic.
He rolled his eyes as well. I could see him doing it.
He said that the tyre was not really dangerous and we had been driving around on it for weeks. He showed me the problem, which turned out to be a tiny nick in the side of it and said that it would never make any difference at all but that he had to write me a scary note because that was the law, and would I please take it home because it was cluttering up his forecourt.
I took it home.
Mark has put the spare on it and ordered a bit for the suspension that needs replacing. He says I can probably take it back tomorrow.
Tomorrow I am just going to read my book.
I have had enough of being virtuous.
I haven’t taken a picture today. Have a picture of some rascals at Speech Day.
