Bank holiday Monday, and double time in a taxi.
This is every taxi driver’s favourite moment.
It has been sunny and lovely all day, although not hot, because of a cool breeze fluttering down from the fells. The general result of this has seemed to be that everybody is surprised to find themselves a bit pink and unexpectedly sunburned.
We belted through the housework as fast as we could so that we would not be late for work, but we were anyway.
We had to water the conservatory, which was starting to gasp with desperate longing, although it can hardly be more than a day or two since we drenched it last. We have made so much money that we can probably afford to fix the watering system in it now, which will make life a very lot easier.
Mark has had to hastily construct a new shelf at the back of the sofa for the pot plants, which have become so huge that we could barely squeeze past them to reach the washing machine.
They are occupying all of the window space now, and beginning to look hungrily at anybody who is foolhardy enough to sit in front of them on the sofa.
Since writing the last paragraph my world has changed considerably. Bowness Taxis rang and asked if I would have their phone for the evening.
This means answering the phone and taking bookings, following which you actually have to turn up with the taxi as promised to take people to wherever they want to go.
I am really too rude to be allowed to do this, but they were desperate. The only other choice was Trevor, who is very deaf, and who, in any case was already not answering his phone.
I agreed, rather reluctantly, because I think that this sort of thing is the most awful nuisance. It means that you have got to pay attention to the things people are telling you, and then remember to be in the right place at the right time, after which you have got to be polite to them, otherwise they will not ring you up again. I have never cared about this, being of the opinion that my job is to drive from one place to another, and that I am a taxi driver not a cabaret act.
The thing is that when it is somebody else’s business you have got to look after it for them and make sure that all of their customers carry on ringing them up after you have gone.
When you are running the telephone and there are a lot of taxis, you have got to know what every taxi is doing at any time, and how long it is going to take them to do it. This would be a feat of recollection at any time, but it is made a lot harder by the detail that taxi drivers are entirely likely to buzz off on nefarious projects of their own without telling anybody. I know this because I used to do it as well, and it is infuriating for an operator, whose telephone is ringing frantically and who is bawling over the radio for drivers who have just met somebody irresistibly beautiful and who won’t be seen again for the rest of the night.
When I was running a taxi company I used to be able to operate for ten taxis at once without ever worrying about writing things down, but my brain has deteriorated in an elderly and idle sort of way since then. Hence, it is a good job that this evening there was just me, and Mark, and Trevor, who had switched his phone back on and who is a jolly good taxi driver if you remember to shout.
We were kept busy.
I answered the telephone and bellowed instructions. Fortunately neither Mark nor Trevor fell in love with anybody and disappeared, and equally fortunately, I did not forget anything or confuse anything or send anybody to the wrong place.
In fact, by the end of the evening I thought that we had had a jolly good time. I was not at all expecting this, because I do not like doing telephone bookings in the least, but the sunshine made everybody good natured, so it was not difficult to be polite to them, and the double time cheered my spirits.
By the time we staggered in at home, weighed down by bulging cash boxes, it was too late to get enough sleep to get up and be happy tomorrow morning. Mark has got to go to work, and we are going to feel horrible.
We will worry about that tomorrow. For tonight we are happy and solvent, and I do not think that anybody can ask for much more from life.
Have a picture of the conservatory.
