Replenishment

It would appear that the Bank Holiday rush is over.

I am not at all sorry.

Everybody has packed their bags and chugged off down the wet motorway, apart from a couple of tragic misfortunates who have made some terrible driving errors on one of the more winding country roads and who have left the scene in the Air Ambulance. The road is still closed, so I hope we don’t get any fares going in that direction.

Saturday was a long and busy night and we were thoroughly sick of taxis by the time it was over. If I am honest I was a bit sick of taxis before I even started, but it was a jolly lot worse by the end. By the time we pulled into the alley at the back of the house I had practically stuck in the folded-up driving position, and could hardly unbend enough to get out.

I did not mind. We will be able to pay the mortgage this week, and possibly even do some nice things as well. The winter seems to have gone on for a very long time, and every cupboard of Emergency Winter Stores has emptied. There is a mere half a sack of flour left under the desk. The storage bedding box has been emptied of its optimistic contents of Nice Things For Winter, and all that remains, forlornly in the bottom, are a couple of spray-bottles of black mould remover and a box of soap powder.

This is a Good Sign. It suggests that we have not been excessively plagued with black mould over the winter months.

It does not matter in the least now that spring is upon us. Easter has arrived just in time, and any day now we will be able to start replenishing and refilling. I am of an age where I am excited about this. Mark mentioned the other day that he was having to be careful not to use too much deodorant in case it ran out, and now we can splash it around with joyous abandon. Hurrah for tourism, that’s what I think.

Oliver had his first driving lesson this morning, and had a splendid time. Of course he can already do basic driving, because of having learned with Mark a bit in the field, although I very much hope he does not drive like that in his driving lessons.

He was very impressed by the wonderfulness of the instructor’s car, which, he said, is astonishingly easy to drive, without any red lights on the dashboard or things that make peculiar noises. The clutch bites easily and you can feel it without a problem, and there is no black smoke at all.

We told him to make the most of it because when he gets his own car it will be just like all of the other family cars, and will be ancient, rusty, and held together with zip ties and swearing.

Not long now and he can have his own taxi.

He has gone off to work this afternoon, feeling pleased with his newly grown-up self. I am pleased as well. It hardly seems five minutes since he was toddling about in nappies, and indeed, it is not all that long since we removed the last emergency dummy from the camper van. He had not used it, obviously, it was just that some vague part of me had hung on to it, just in case.

You never know when somebody might have an upsetting day.

We waved him off with his instructor and then collapsed back into bed for some further sleep. We woke up again five minutes before he came home and had to dash round, trying not to look as though we were shockingly idle. He told us all about it, and then buzzed off to work, leaving us frantically trying to cram all of my usual Monday chores into half a day before work.

This was easier than it sounds because there were two of us, and we hoovered and polished and faffed about with laundry until it was time to get ready for work. Mark scrubbed the scratches out of the bath with some T-Cut, and I fiddled about with the oil burners to see if we could get them working again, but the wicks had collapsed and we couldn’t.

Maybe now we have earned some money we might be able to get some more wicks. We have planned so many things to do with last night’s profits. I would like to begin the slow refilling of the bedding box, and it is jolly well time that we started saving up for Christmas.

I do feel very benevolently contented now that the world is beginning to improve.

This does not extend to customers, of course.

It is still double time in a taxi.