It has been the sort of Monday where I have had so much flapping about to do that I have barely finished anything, and not started quite a few things into the bargain.
As I write the sheets are still dangling about over the top of the stove, because I brought them in from the line too late for them to dry off properly, and now I am going to have to make my bed when I have finished work.
It has just been a long day of faffing around. It had something of a regrettable hiccup in its very earliest stages when I backed my taxi into the dustbin this morning and broke the back light lens. The sun was shining on the mirror and when the dustbin leaped out into the alley behind me I completely failed to see it, greatly to the amusement of the builders who are putting a new chimney on the house at the end.
Fortunately some new red stick-on vinyl for rear lights arrived in the post this very afternoon, and Lucy’s boyfriend Jack very kindly stuck it on for me. He also showed me which was the switch for the reversing light that needed to be taken off and cleaned or replaced. He would have done it for me but took one look through the door into Mark’s shed and you will not be surprised to learn that he decided that there was no way he was going to try and find anything in there, and he said that he would rather bring his own tools and do it when he comes back here in a few days.
He is making an unexpected journey home. He was supposed to be staying here for the week, and has driven all the way up from Manchester, but the place where he is working decided this afternoon that they don’t now need him until Thursday, so he is going to have to go back again tonight.
He is irritated but resigned, because of having quite a lot which must be done in Manchester. He has a car to sell and a flat to vacate, and so, wearily, he has packed up to re-arrive later on this week.
In between bashing my taxi about and making grateful noises to Jack I have done lots of small, annoying little tasks, because they have been irking me for a few days. I have sent some documents to the insurance company, who explained that they can’t read documents sent in emails, so I sent them again. The third time I sent them I attached a picture of the documents as part of the emails, so that all they needed to do was to scroll down and look at them, but they wrote back and said they can’t see those either.
I am not quite sure what I am going to do about this. I do not want to have to download their tiresome App to do it. My telephone is already full of enough pointless junk, and I do not trust them not to secretly monitor my taxi driving when I am not looking. You never know, because the august Daily Telegraph has warned me that we are in a new era of Government surveillance, they will be eavesdropping on my telephone calls and everything if I am not careful.
I have sent Mark’s weekly invoice to his current employers, and then sent it again when it turned out that they felt they had a moral obligation to pay him for the online training courses that he was compelled to complete before he left.
I did these with him because he is not very adept at computering. He is far too dyslexic to be able to sail through the complexities of Company Policy and Health And Safety Regulation without a translator. I now know all about Safe Lifting At Work and Not Dropping Things On People’s Heads, I expect I could work on an oil rig as well if I concentrated hard.
I did, however, confirm our bookings for the lovely Midland Hotel at Christmas. That was a bright spot in my day, and I was encouraged to remember that I am not always going to be dashing about dusting and arguing with insurance companies and picking up dog accidents. There will be three brightly glorious days in my future where I stroll into the glorious Midland, dump my bags on the concierge with an airy wave, and collapse into the bar to order cocktails. I will dress in my finest dungarees without the bleach splashes, and my most comfortable smart suede shoes, and I will have a holiday from all of the difficult and exhausting things in my life, like not eating chocolate, and stumping up over the fells, and having cold showers. All of those things will be in abeyance for three wonderful days.
I will miss them by the time I get home, of course.
It is almost midnight.
It has been a very rubbish night of taxi driving. There are no customers tonight.
I think I had better go home and make my bed.
