We had to hurry up and I did not have time to write in these pages before work. It is Saturday night, and busy, so I fear this might become a bit disjointed.
I am sure you will understand.
Mark rushed off to the farm with the dogs as the last bit of day before work. This was splendid, because it meant that I had the luxury of being able to put my boots on without anybody trying to eat my socks in the process. I had forgotten what an efficiently swift process it could be.
He would have liked to go this afternoon, but was obliged to fix his taxi. This needs an MOT this week, and had a cracked bit which needed to be fixed with a new one.
In the event it all came apart and slotted back together again rather more easily than he was expecting, and he was very pleased with it all. I was pleased as well, because he came to help me get our taxi picnics ready instead of lying underneath the car and swearing.
We had a busy night last night. I took one of my favourite customers, who is a teenage boy a bit older than Oliver, who has lung difficulties. At the moment he is deciding whether or not to allow the doctor to chop a bit out of them. I am not sure why this might help, but he assures me that it will, and that in any case he wants his lungs to work properly in case he ever decides to go scuba diving.
I sympathised with this, although I have never been scuba diving. I went for a swim with a snorkel once, which was enjoyable although mildly alarming, and I would not at all like to do it in any of our lakes. I do not even want to think about what might be lurking in their murky depths.
I do hope he gets better and the cutting a bit off helps him. He is not pleased about it because it is going to occupy most of his summer holidays. It is a difficult world sometimes.
I took a girl and her boyfriend back to their expensive hotel. It was obviously rather more than they could afford, and they were trying to be very upmarket. Misfortunately, the girl was wearing the sort of costume which inclined me to assume she had forgotten her actual clothes.
She was very pretty, but terribly under-dressed, especially for a chilly evening.
Halfway back to their hotel she opined that I was well-spoken and ladylike, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, and said that she would like to be like me when she grew up.
I was mildly surprised at this, but drink is a marvellous thing.
Then she asked me if I thought she looked trashy.
This was a terrible moment, as my natural inclination is towards truthfulness. I said, truthfully but without answering the question, that I thought perhaps she looked a bit chilly.
She persisted, and I avoided answering, because I have never seen the Queen dressed in high heels and extremely revealing underwear, and tend to believe that she is the one to emulate if you are hopeful for a high-class sartorial outcome.
Her proud boyfriend maintained, fondly and enthusiastically, that she was beautiful. I managed to agree with that.
When they got out she came round to my window and told me in a whisper that her boyfriend had bought her the outfit, and she loathed it. It felt horrible, she said, cheap and trashy.
I told her that she looked lovely, and not to worry, and that if the two of them were happy nobody cared what anybody else thought.
Readers, I told a fib.
I told her she did not look trashy in the least.
I am very glad indeed that it has never occurred to Mark to purchase embarrassing outfits to dress me up in. I suspect some young men do not exactly understand that their girlfriend is not Saturday Night Barbie, and might not wish to go out wearing very little apart from a couple of tattoos.
Somehow I think that probably I need not worry.
When pressed about what he would like me to wear, Mark has always suggested a boiler suit and a squirt of WD40, and then laughed.
I think I would probably prefer that.
