I am not on the taxi rank tonight.
I stayed there last night from six until eleven, during which time only two people wanted a taxi, and one of them just wanted to go round the corner in a hurry so that his pizza did not go cold on the way home.
Given that, even compared to Mondays, Tuesdays are not customarily thrilling nights full of alcohol-related bonhomie, I did not bother tonight.
I have stayed at home to tidy up and write to you instead. This means that tonight I won’t even make the £7.40 that I made last night, but what the hell, call me reckless.
I have been cleaning up all day. This has been rather nice, because Mark, Oliver and the dogs all buzzed off to cut firewood at the farm, and I had a day bursting with peaceful silence.
Oliver got up this morning feeling concerned about his financial state. In other words, he wanted to buy something on the Internet and then remembered that his bank account was empty.
He spent some time ambling around the village to see if anybody had any jobs on offer to a teenager, but nobody had. They all said that this was because of Bat Flu.
He has not had any pocket money since Christmas, so I gave him last night’s takings, and he volunteered to do useful things in return.
Mark said that he needed to go to the farm to cut up a fallen cherry tree on the field, and perhaps Oliver might like to come and help. If Mark cut it up and split it, perhaps Oliver would chuck it into the boot of the car for him. Oliver could then drive it up the field and stack it in the shed. This would be easier now than it was the last time they did it, a couple of years ago, because Oliver is now tall enough for his feet to reach the pedals and does not need to be jammed into the driver’s seat with rolled up quilts behind him.
Oliver thought that this would be jolly good.
Mark showed him how to sharpen the chainsaw, and off they went.
Left to my own devices I started to clean at the top of the house. Actually it was Oliver’s bedroom because the loft is going to be a week’s project all by itself, so I ignored that. Maybe some day I will have a burst of youthful energy or possibly some good drugs. I will do it then.
I cleaned my way down.
I had not finished when Mark and Oliver came back. Indeed, I had just got to the top of the last set of stairs. I had not even started on the terrible scruffy scrap-heap that the downstairs floor had become, and it looked every bit as dreadful as it had done when they left.
We had a cup of tea and I explained.
Mark said that since it was a mess already it would not matter if he made things a lot worse, so he cut a hole in the wall to stick the pipe for the extractor fan through. You can see this in the top corner of the doorway in the picture. He was right about the mess getting worse and wrong about it not mattering, because we were still clearing up at half past nine.
Oliver had a very good time at the farm, and better still, tomorrow he is going to go with Mark to help rebuild Number One Son-In-Law’s house. He is a bit worried about this, because he is not sure that he will be very good at being a builder, but probably it will come in handy if he fails his GCSEs.
Anyway, he needs the cash.
