I am listening to a very splendid story on the Audible thing on my telephone, and it is keeping me thoroughly gripped on my way back to the taxi rank after depositing customers.
It is a Ripping Yarn. It is a true Ripping Yarn about the SAS rescuing British hostages in Sierra Leone, and it is magnificent to listen to, there is not a character arc anywhere to be seen. This feature was, you will recall, beloved of my university lecturers, an insistence which always mystified me. I always suspected, secretly, that they were merely boring additions to a narrative, and have been pleased to note that the ebullient gentlemen of the SAS are exactly the same mildly unhinged rascals throughout the whole story.
They are true heroes, and I am very glad that we have them.
I am not sure if I would like Oliver to become one, though.
I am not listening to the story on the taxi rank itself because it has been a Hot Spot for gossip tonight. One driver has buzzed off to join Uber, and is keeping us posted about how much he is earning. This has led to a great deal of taxi-rank speculation about whether it is really true or whether Uber is just being nice to him because he is new, and might just be waiting until he is firmly skewered on their nasty hook before reeling him in to a life of penury for ever after.
We are torn between hoping for his success so that there are fewer competitors on the taxi rank, and hoping for his failure so that we will all be vindicated in believing Uber to be a dastardly conclave of villains, and hoping for his success simply because we like him and it would be pleasing to hear a success story for a change. Nobody quite knows which is their favourite feeling at the moment, and we have been discussing our opinions, thoughtfully.
We have also been captivated by rather more thrilling gossip about a taxi driver who has simply disappeared, and who has been spotted delivering parcels in Kendal. Nobody knows exactly why he has made such a surprising career change, and wild theories abound, some of which, regrettably, might actually be true.
I hope not. I liked him.
Still, it reduces the competition on the taxi rank.
The gossip has proved such an engrossing occupation that it was after eleven before I got round to starting to write to you, and although Bowness seems to have been mostly emptied, I thought I might as well finish before I set off for home, not that there have been many thrilling events to be described.
I regret to tell you that the most newsworthy event of the day actually happened last night, when I was forcibly giving poor Guffy the kitten her medicine. She was so upset that whilst she was busily spitting it out at one end, there was a noisy eruption at the other end. This had the most ghastly result, and I had to put my trousers into the washing machine.
Other than that small adventure, it has been a day of unexciting activity, largely centred around laundry.
It is Clean Sheets Day, and I noticed, to my horror, when I stripped the bed this morning, that all of the gubbins which lives between the sheet and the mattress, being an electric blanket on top of a mattress cover on top of an old quilt, had become unpleasantly yellowed.
I do not mean the sort of yellow that comes with the leakage of bodily fluids. We are not quite that old, and the dogs are only allowed on the bed when there is a large towel between them and any actual bedding.
I mean the sort of yellow that is the revolting accumulation of months of sweaty grease, and so I stripped everything off.
I hoovered the mattress, with equally repellent results, and wiped it down with a beguiling chemical that promised, probably untruthfully, to restore it to Breezy Freshness.
Then I did four loads of washing.
Fortunately it didn’t rain.
The only other event of note was that Oliver rescued me from a very large spider which had taken up residence in the conservatory, and which was refusing to run away, but sat in the corner waving its legs at me threateningly.
He picked it up with his bare hands and put it into the yard.
He might well turn out to be brave enough for the SAS at this rate.
