Dearie me, I have had enough of customers, especially the hot cross sticky ones.
I am aware that this is not a very productive approach from a customer-relations standpoint, if I had somebody like me on my payroll I would probably be trying to think of a way to get me off it.
All the same, I have had enough of them. Sunshine makes people belligerent, probably including me, actually, and there have been some tiresomely argumentative muppets, who have complained their heads off at me as a sort of sideline occupation to squabbling with one another and shouting at their children.
I was out at work early again this afternoon.
I had been in Kendal, having my hair cut. This feels wonderful, I have been neatly and thoroughly shorn, and there is a pleasing draught about my ears.
It is really very short indeed. I would not look out of place as an extra in Oi For England, which, for the youngsters among you, was a film I recollect vaguely from my distant youth. All necessary information is, I believe, contained in the title, probably much more explanation is not necessary.
Once tidily trimmed I dashed home, brought in the washing and dashed back out to work, where to my surprise, I was kept busy for ages. There are not many taxi drivers at the moment, the advent of Uber has led to several non-die-hards giving up and sloping off, and one or two more actually joining Uber themselves.
I am a harder dier than that.
Not for nothing have I spent much of the last thirty years watching the world wag past this taxi rank, and I have every intention of continuing to sit here until either I expire of some disease of the ancient and doddery, or at least until something more interesting happens or I win the lottery. Anyway, as a result, for a very great deal of this bank holiday I have been the only taxi driver here.
This has helped swell our coffers a bit and also explains the first paragraph.
Also I will be very glad when it is over. In a rash moment I had covered the seats of my taxi with faux-leather covers. These are splendidly easy to wipe clean after some of the viler activities of my passengers, but I am wearing shorts, and my legs are sticking to them in an uncomfortably sticky sort of manner.
I manufactured the shorts this morning, out of a pair of ancient dungarees that had worn too thin to be acceptable even to my unchallenging standards of sartorial elegance, by the simple expedient of hacking the legs off. I have made them look almost as though they were meant to be like that by hemming the raw edges. This was not because of their appearance as much as because frayed edges dangle against my legs and irritate me. I know this from last year’s shorts, not that I did anything about it.
In any case their appearance will never be wonderful, because of the paint smears and the small but noticeable detail that I have accidentally cut one leg shorter than the other.
I think most people have got other things to think about. Nobody is looking at my shorts.
It wasn’t even the only mishap in the day.
I decided this morning that I would water the conservatory, by the simple method of fastening the hose to the tap and hooking the end over the flower bed.
I did not want to leave it unsupervised, and so whilst the hose was merrily spraying, I turned my attention to manufacturing some clothes for my Ugly Fairy.
She is coming along quite nicely, actually, although her face needs some further painting, I will take a picture when she is finished.
I became deeply engrossed in industriously piecing together scraps of frayed silk, which was how I completely failed to notice that one of the flower beds had sprung a leak.
The water had been quietly sluicing out and when eventually I looked up, it was to discover myself a small surprised island in the middle of a quietly spreading lake.
I splashed about helplessly for a while, before deciding to sweep it up with a dustpan and brush, which took ages but worked.
It filled two buckets.
I did not want to waste the water, so I tipped it back into one of the non-leaking flower beds, and instructed the children not to traverse the conservatory in their socks.
I will have to remember about the leak for future watering occasions, not that there is much I can do about it.
All the same, the plants are looking lush and green and grateful.
Also it cooled the conservatory down very nicely indeed.
