Mark’s car has passed its MOT.
I am very pleased and relieved about this.
This means that we will not need to think about any taxi-related difficulties over Christmas, because both cars are up to date with all of their paperwork for as far into the future as I can see at the moment, which is to about the fifth of January.
The whole shebang cost us three hundred quid, which is a lot more than you pay for your MOT, but the other two hundred and fifty five was to cover the council’s paperwork and the small plastic plate to go on the bumper.
What a bargain.
Anyway, I do not much care because it is done and I do not need to worry about it any more.
I was supposed to walk into Kendal to buy some coffee whilst the MOT was being done, but Storm Boris is upon us, and the weather was so ghastly that I thought I would rather not bother. I was glad that I hadn’t, because I managed to occupy a very peaceful hour in the garage waiting room writing my end-of-term assignment for my class.
This is terribly important and will decide a third of the grade I get at the end, and so I am determined to make it one of my very best efforts. There is no reason whatsoever why I should feel like this, because nobody is ever, ever likely to ask me if I have done a Creative Writing Course and if so what mark did I achieve. This is not the point. The point is that I have got to do jolly well. The marks start at seventy for a first, sliding downwards to some other grades at the bottom. I did not even bother to read those, because basically I would just have to shoot myself. I just looked at seventy and above. Eighty is of a standard which is immediately publishable.
Of course I know that I have got to get eighty. Not only that but I have got to get the best eighty in the class.
It is not a competition but I am not going to lose.
I explained this to Mark in the shower last night, which made him laugh and roll his eyes. I have got until January to get it finished so I had better organise something else for Christmas dinner.
In the event I wrote quite a lot at the MOT garage, and was so caught up in the whole thing that I flew round Asda and bought some things that we didn’t need whilst forgetting absolutely every single thing that we did. Then I came dashing back home to write some more.
Obviously I have not finished yet, and in the end I had to drag myself reluctantly away to get some dinner ready. We are not working tonight, because of the lack of customers. There are so few of these that Mark occupied my class time last night by sitting on the taxi rank, so that he could read his book in peace, and did not get a single one.
This is unusually rubbish even in the most rubbish of times.
We do not mind because it means that we can not bother with a clear conscience for the rest of the week, and tonight, which is not quite yet because I am writing this early, we are going to decorate the Christmas tree.
It is jolly well time we got round to this, it has been there for ages and the dogs are already starting to remember what they do with the chocolates, which we have managed to hang on it. When we got up this morning there were some very sticky smears and some ribbon-bedecked wrappers on their cushions.
The dogs are having a very happy Christmas already.
I have made curry for dinner and we are going to have a glass of the single malt with the tree-decorating.
We are having a happy Christmas as well.
