And it is over.
We have got two taxis again.
I can hardly explain what a huge relief this is. Having lost Mark and his taxi over the weekend has halved our income whilst simultaneously costing us a colossal fortune purchasing the numerous bits which turned out to be necessary to fix it.
It is done. Mark has fixed it. He is still bashing about outside now, since it is not quite time for work yet, but he is tidying up and putting his tools away. He has tried the car and it goes, and the relief was like the moment when the Florida State Governor changes his mind and the prisoner is escorted back to his cell.
My car is going as well, thanks to the new alternator belt. In a very few minutes now we will be a two-income family again.
This is a lot better than being a no-income-whatsoever family, which was how we concluded Saturday night.
Saturday night was ages ago, in another lifetime. It is now Monday, we are mobile, and I am feeling entirely light-hearted and relieved.
To add to the picture of joyous and potentially solvent domestic bliss, we have got the children at home. I suppose I ought not to call them that since Lucy is almost twenty two and Oliver will be seventeen in a few weeks, and given that they are now both making inroads into our domestic wine stocks really the label no longer applies.
They are being cared for at home anyway, and utterly exhausted from their Italian adventures. I began to wonder if they had actually expired when they still had not stirred by one o’clock this afternoon, but they hadn’t, and it required some bellowing up the stairs coupled with the aroma of pancake cooking to bring them staggering blearily down.
We had pancakes for breakfast, which was the second convivial event of the day, because of course when the day started my parents were still around. They had originally intended to stay at a guest house a little way away, but there had been some general confusion over the dates, and they finished up staying with our friend who has a B&B, seasonably called Autumn Leaves, which was very handily situated just on the other side of the alley. This was not quite as large as the original, and does not have a car park, but this did not matter because it is October, and there was plenty of space in the car park just across the road.
All things considered it turned out very splendidly well indeed. It also helped that because it was just on the next street they could just walk back at the end of the evening, and so nobody had to say No Thank You I’m Driving when it came to the brandy part of the evening at the end.
They popped back this morning for a coffee before trundling off down the motorway, although they declined to accept brandy in this one, and we had a sociable hour in the conservatory before they had to go, and we had got to get on with our day’s adventures.
Mostly my adventures have been laundry-related. There seemed to be a huge pile of unwashed garments now that there are four of us, and it was Clean Sheets Day, and it rained.
By the time I had finished laundering and feeding and dog-emptying it was almost time to go to work. I have been trying to find some time to write my story, but so far without success. I am going to be five hundred years old before I am JK Rowling at this rate.
Tomorrow is looking hopeful. The man who sold us the dodgy filter-less filter has agreed to give us our money back, albeit reluctantly, although he has asked if we can wait until Thursday because he has accidentally spent it. We agreed to this, since we are going south on Thursday anyway, and so tomorrow is looking promisingly clear. Mark is off to do rural broadband and I will merely be responsible for childcare.
Apart from that I will be able to write some story.
Perhaps I should say Adult-care.
