Mark has finished the building works at Number One Son-In-Law’s house now.
The result of this was that he was not working, but at home today.
This was a very peculiar step back towards the life that we once had.
Once upon a time, in the very distant past, we both just drove taxis and had no other job at all. In fact we had a lot of taxis, and other people used to drive them for us. I loathed this more than I can possibly tell you, and the day when we sold it all to somebody else was one of the finest days of my life.
I am not cut out for a career in management.
We appointed the two least piratical taxi drivers as shift managers to help manage it all for us, and I sent them on a course to learn how to do it properly. One of them filled his pockets with all the sandwiches from lunchtime, for reasons of domestic economy, and then took his teeth out for the afternoon session. The other fell asleep shortly after they arrived, and stayed like that.
After we had decided against company management as a career option, Mark went off to work installing rural broadband with his friend Ted for a few days every week, and just drove a taxi sometimes.
Then the Government became scared that we would all catch bat flu, and there were no customers any more. Mark worked for Ted and for Number One Son-In-Law all of the time, and I made his sandwiches and washed his socks and mended the holes in his jumpers.
There are customers again now. Not in their reckless, hedonistic millions, but customers none the less. Today was the first day that we did some of the things that we used to do. It was a working day, but Mark was at home, and then he came to work with me in the middle of the afternoon.
It was all jolly weird and unsettling, I can tell you.
He did not actually stay at home all day. He took last night’s takings and went off to spend them on some new tyres for his taxi. It is not all right to have only-just-all-right tyres in a taxi. You need to be an example of shining motoring virtue.
Even with new tyres, Mark’s taxi will never be an example of shining motoring virtue, or indeed, shining anything, even though he cleaned it yesterday.
Once he was gone I decided that I wanted to come home tonight to a gleaming house, like coming into a smart hotel, albeit for a very late check-in, so I cleaned things and hoovered.
When Mark came home I said that he had got to help me, because of not having the excuse of gainful employment elsewhere, and because I wanted to make everything tidy before work.
It is very nice indeed to have somebody else helping in the house. I had forgotten this.
He brought in firewood, because it is not that warm yet, and swept the kitchen.
There is usually time, after I have done all of the chores in the morning, to spend an hour doing an extra project in the afternoon. Sometimes this is baking, sometimes it is cutting firewood, sometimes it is going shopping.
Today we had got some things to plant in the conservatory.
This was quite a challenge, because we have completely run out of space, and we have got melons leafing enthusiastically all over the seed bed. They needed putting into bigger pots, and we have bought some magical mystical bits of root for some things called Yacon, which need to be started off in pots before being taken up to the field.
We do not know what Yacon are. You grow them and then eat the roots, a bit like potatoes, except they are supposed to taste much nicer. I will let you know about this if ever we find out. It is quite likely that the sheep and the slugs will get them first.
In the end the only available space was on the floor next to the door, because you can still get past, as long as you are careful.
The picture shows the melons. I filled the newly-empty bit of seed bed with some lettuces.
There is really no more space now.
I do not know where we are going to put the beans.
