We had so many ghastly customers last night that we concluded at the end of it that there must have been a batch of bad drugs recently arrived here.
Both of us had customers who had money, but who were simply too insensible to understand the request for it, or to get it out of their pockets, or to find their way up the path once they had left the taxi. I had one extremely unpleasant young man who insisted, very convincingly but utterly without veracity, that his friends need not give me any money because he had already given me a tenner, and they should give their share of the fare to him.
Fortunately he must have done this before, because they did not believe him.
We had squabbling, tearful hen parties, arguing couples, and one large and mildly spectacular brawl. This last involved about eight young men who bellowed and swung punches at one another, but failed to do any significant damage, and disappeared before anybody thought to call the thin blue line to come and persuade them to desist.
I imagine the thin blue line might have been disappointed had they known. Lucy is always pleased to be summoned to anything involving fisticuffs, and indeed, turned up to our London trip with a split lip, acquired in a pub brawl on New Year’s Eve.
Anyway, we were pleased that the evening was over, because it had been a joyless sort of an evening. Matters were not improved by a spell of truly dreadful weather, which has continued into today, consisting of wild, squally winds and hailstones.
We did not walk up the fell this morning. One of the dogs was actually blown off his feet and across the alley as we set off, and we thought that probably it would be a good idea to turn around at the end of the park, which we did, and returned to the fireside with a good deal of relief.
When we had warmed ourselves up again, I went upstairs to get on with some preparation for my course, and Mark sloped off into the yard to do something mysterious.
It is only mysterious because I do not understand it, not because he is keeping it secret. In fact he has explained it to me several times already, and I really do not have the first idea what he is talking about. He is designing something that will generate electricity. I do not exactly know how, there is a bit that goes round and round, I think. I can only tell you that it is being made out of some bits of an old tumble dryer that somebody has given him.
He was very pleased about this. He says that it has got lots of really useful bits, like a motor and a pump and some micro-switches.
I have been obliged to remind him that there will be some less useful bits, and that I do not wish to find them abandoned in the yard. That is the function of the dustbin and it would be a shame to waste it.
He has been talking about this latest invention for some time now, and it is doing nothing to increase my affection for our beloved leaders. The approaching spike in electricity prices has galvanised Mark into a passion of happy creativity, which is lovely but is making conversation difficult. He occupied our walk around the park with a detailed explanation of how he might modify a bearing in order to include it in his Home Made Generator.
I nodded and tried not to betray my utter lack of comprehension.
He asked what I was thinking about so I explained my current short story project, which is about what might happen if God dispatched an angel to run an hotel.
He had not got a clue what I was talking about either, and nodded with a sort of vague and distant look.
It is lovely to be a couple in harmony.
