Projected

I had a very happy interruption on the taxi rank this evening.

I was just about to start writing in these pages when a shape loomed large at the window beside me, and it was not some fat nuisance with a bad leg just wanting to go round the corner, but Elspeth.

This was an enormous improvement on the sort of person who usually wants to get in the taxi. She had been for a massage, and had stopped by the taxi rank for a very pleasing half hour chat and to catch up on the various adventures being enjoyed by our children.

In our youth we used to discuss our own adventures, of course, but those days are gone. These days we discuss medication and the advantages of having reached an age when we can be comfortably certain of knowing everything, at least everything that is likely to be useful, like how to make really good lemon cakes and whereabouts under the bonnet you need to pour the screen wash.

I was most disgruntled when some fat nuisances wanted to get in and Elspeth went home.

Still it was a very pleasant start to the evening, and a chance to explain my current opinions to somebody who is interested, although I ought to add that of course Mark is interested as well, especially if I am talking about brake pads or throttle cables.

Talking of which I am pleased to announce that it is installed and complete, and we have a mobile camper van once again. That is to say, it is mobile if you don’t mind some of its more glaring difficulties, not the smallest of which is that the cab is becoming unglued and one day soon it will simply drop away, which has been an encouragement for us to make a hasty start with our renovation project.

We are still very excited about this, but it has had to wait until Mark has finished mending my taxi. Some bits of this have ceased to function properly, I wasn’t listening but I think that they might perhaps be the ball joints, and he has begun replacing them.

We are going to take it to the new shed tomorrow, the camper van, not my taxi. Nobody cares about my taxi. The camper van is the thrilling project at the moment.

I would have liked to start moving it today but Mark was mending my taxi, so I sloped off to the library. I have returned Boris Johnson’s Bumper Book Of Excuses and in its stead I have an interesting book by Jeremy Clarkson and a biography of the King. Obviously I know what the King has been doing, he spent all of his life being Prince of Wales, married a pretty teenage muppet which regrettably concluded with too many squabbles and a chap with red hair, then he finally settled down with somebody sensible before starting on a new career in his seventies. Still, I quite like the sort of book which does not include any nasty surprises, and so I am expecting to enjoy it in quiet moments on the taxi rank.

I will not even need to skip to the end to find out what happens if the excitement all gets too much.

Oliver was going to come home today, but he was having a happy time spending his college holidays in Bath, and so he has decided to stay there a bit longer. I was very pleased about this, how lovely for one’s children to be so settled and contented that they are not in the smallest hurry to come back. Also I have not yet made the trip to Booths for pizzas and the extremely boring cheese that he favours, so my parental inadequacies will escape detection. I can do it tomorrow and when he turns up I will just pretend that I did it ages ago.

We had worried that he might not see very much of Mark before Mark has to go back offshore, but we had an email from his company telling us that the departure has been delayed again, although only by a couple of days. In order to stop him from becoming disgruntled and simply buzzing off to do something else, they added a placatory note that of course they would pay him to stay at home. This worked brilliantly, and I am happy to assure you that he is not at all grumpy about it, not least because it means he will be able to finish fixing my taxi and we can make a start on the Great Camper Van Project.

Any day now.