We still have the wonderful sunshine.
I am not enjoying it quite as much as I should have been, because it has been weekend, and as usual I have been working at nights until the dawn begins to brighten the sky, with the inevitable result that I have wasted an awful lot of sunshine just by being fast asleep in bed.
This is infuriating. We do not get enough sunshine in the Lake District for it to be all right to fritter it away carelessly, and I have been cross with myself for such profligacy.
I have not managed to stay awake, though, and both yesterday and today saw me retreating, wearily, back to bed as soon as the day’s responsibilities had been accounted for.
These were more exciting yesterday than today, because yesterday saw a scary adventure.
One of the indicator light bulbs on my taxi was making the irritating frequent clicking noise which indicates neither left nor right, but that the bulb has packed up.
I telephoned Mark, and he asked which bulb it was.
Of course I had no idea, only being vaguely aware that there was more than one, but eventually traced it to the one on the back corner, behind the driver.
Mark said that I would have to take the whole back panel of lights off, and that there was a spare one in his shed.
Not a spare bulb, you will notice, but a spare panel full of them. He collects this sort of thing, despite my determined efforts to get him to stop, and I had to acknowledge, although only secretly because I had no intention of saying it to him, that this was a very useful thing to have around.
I listened with half an ear to his descriptions of where to find the necessary tools for its removal, and then on Saturday afternoon I gave it a go.
Fortunately it was not raining.
I will not bore you with details of finding the right bit to enable me to unfasten the screw, which was inexplicably not properly screw-shaped, either a flat-head or like a little plus sign. For some completely peculiar reason the screw had a little star on the top which could only be undone with a special bit which was obviously hidden in the depths of Mark’s shed. I do not know why car builders do this, presumably to make everybody hate them, there can be no other reason. Certainly if the designer of that particular irritant had shown up wanting a taxi that night he would have found himself walking. Some people do not deserve kindness and consideration.
I got it off in the end. This is always scary, because once you have got an incomplete taxi you can’t go to work, so your whole life and fortune hinges on you being able to get it back together again, which is never a certainty.
It took a lot of messing about and swapping bits between light panels and forgetting which bit had come from where and then not being able to get the wretched thing back on again anyway.
Of course I managed it eventually, by which time I had sore fingers, an array of useless lightbulbs, and had somehow become completely filthy, but I was very, very pleased with myself. I was an Independent Woman.
Also the indicator was working again.
Today was not nearly so exciting, being mainly occupied with laundry and dog-emptying. Oliver came with me on my walk this morning, which was lovely, albeit in a breathless kind of way, because of the length of his legs. I stumped along in his wake, wondering if lungs could actually explode, and marvelling quietly at the quantity of mud still underfoot even after weeks of sunshine.
I should have done all sorts of things when I got back, because the conservatory needs sweeping and watering, but I didn’t. Instead I ate a huge Mummy Bear bowl of porridge and then, like Goldilocks, thought that a Little Sleep would be my favourite thing to do next.
I was not, fortunately, awakened by the presence of curiously hungry bears, but by Mark telephoning. He is working at nights again, and so calls me when he wakes up. He is busy at the moment, not just with repairing an oil rig, but with becoming qualified to be a Foreman.
He has already passed the several tests that he must pass in order to do this, and tonight he has got to go to a meeting whereby foremanny matters will be discussed. If the oil rig is satisfied that he is able to be a respectable pillar of the offshore community, fit to be entrusted with the weighty responsibility of everybody’s timesheet, then he will be able to be appointed Chap In Charge.
I would think he is more than capable of such activities, certainly some of the foremen he has worked with so far have been utter muppets, so if they can do it then certainly Mark can.
I am impressed by such dazzlingly rapid career progression, he will be Chief Executive of Shell in no time at this rate.
It is a good thing that one of us is employable.
