We are on a cash-generating initiative.
Nobody seems to need platers in the North Sea at the moment, and we are now too late for Mark to go offshore without missing Lucy’s wedding, so we have resigned ourselves to not earning anything much for the next few weeks.
Obviously we have still got two perfectly functional taxis, but they are not really earning money at the moment. I am sorry to say that whilst they are splendid places for sitting peacefully with a cup of tea and watching the world wagging past, they are very rubbish places for creating an income.
Still, they are what we have got, and so we are putting our noses to the grindstone.
I am not sure that I really understand that expression. I can’t see why it should be considered to be a virtuously hard working activity to have all of the skin rubbed off the end of one’s nose.
Fortunately, putting one’s nose to a taxi grindstone is not exactly arduous. It is a cash-generating occupation that we can do which is almost exactly like having a rest.
We have settled that since we only have one functional taxi, we will take it in turns to drive it, and thus maximise our potential income. This is not very much but if there is any cash out there then it is preferable that it is in our pockets rather than anybody else’s.
Mark is driving it during the day and I am driving it at night.
By Driving It I actually mean Sitting In It Drinking Tea really. I have been here for almost two hours and so far nobody has troubled me for anything., apart from one of the other taxi drivers, who wanted to say hello.
We are resolving the rest of our difficulties in the intervening times. Whilst I have been occupied watching Netflix and reading books in the evening, Mark has been underneath the bonnet of my poor defunct taxi. Whilst he has been occupied during the day gazing peacefully at the steamers chugging up and down the lake and watching people building Land Rovers on YouTube, I have been dashing about cooking and cleaning.
I was so busy today that I even forgot to have my breakfast porridge, and had to bring it with me in a flask as a picnic for the taxi rank. It has been Clean Sheets Day, with all of its attendant nuisances. I might have mentioned before how much I loathe the weekly dusting. I think I have told you that I have even found myself procrastinating by cleaning out the cat litter tray.
I do not like dusting, but it is done for another week. I even did a couple of the skirting boards, although not very many, life is too short for some things even if people might come and look at our house to see if they might want to buy it.
Nobody has come for ages. This is for the same reason that nobody is getting in the taxi, which is that nobody is here. The Lake District is empty.
It is half term, so we are hoping that it will fill up a bit soon.
In the meantime we are making large jugs of tea and sitting resignedly on the taxi rank. I am aware that I would probably earn more money in almost any real job anywhere, even the sort that only paid minimum wage. At the very least they wouldn’t charge me for fuel and insurance, but I don’t think I would like any other job very much. In any case people always seem to want to sack me after a day or two.
So I am sitting here drinking tea.
There are many worse ways to earn a living.
