I am sorry to say that my life is not bursting with thrilling variety with which to regale you at the moment.
This is because we are so broke that I am spending every spare minute on the taxi rank, not that it is helping matters very much. I have been here for almost three hours now and have made £9.20.
All the same it is £9.20 that is better in my pocket than anybody else’s and so I am resigned. Actually some of it is considerably better in my pocket than that of its previous owners, who managed to surprise me with their unattractively obtuse stupidity. My job has made me thoroughly accustomed to idiots, but these two certainly earned themselves a place in the Stupidity Hall Of Fame.
They did not know where they were going. There is nothing especially unusual about this, lots of people are not sufficiently foresighted enough to ensure that they can recall the name of their guest house, and it is part of a taxi driver’s job to work out from the sort of clue that goes Er, it’s over a bridge. An unhurried taxi driver can do a fairly comprehensive tour of unlikely bridges before arriving at the one with the cheap guest house on the other side of it, if it has been a quiet night and takings are looking perilous.
I explained that from my point of view, knowing where the customer is going is a topic which holds some interest for me, and eventually they thought between them that it might be something to do with Friars.
I considered this.
I wondered if the Priory, at the far end of the village, which has been long transformed into holiday lets, might have a Friars’ Cottage in its grounds.
They said that they di’n’t know nuffin’ about no Pry fingy.
They became irate then, complaining loudly that somebody as local as a taxi driver, with all the responsibility that implied, di’n’t know nuffin’ about the place they lived.
I was impassively untroubled.
There were no other taxis on the rank, so they could not storm off and find some better-informed taxi driver, and in the end one of them telephoned his wife.
It was, she told him, called Fair Rigg.
See, he said, in an aggrieved tone. Frairy Igg. Friars. Fancy you not knowin’ that.
I took them to Fair Rigg, and they complained about my woeful ignorance all the way.
Misfortunately the council has specifically requested that we do not tell people what we think about them. This doesn’t always stop me, but it was still early in the evening, and so I desisted.
Apart from that, the evening, and indeed, much of the day, has been uneventful. Mark is still labouring at my car, which might or might not be fixed by the end of the night, and I am very pleased to announce that he has got a place on an assessment for a Competence Certificate next week, so it is possible that our lives might be beginning to look a bit more promisingly optimistic.
I have done a hasty tidy up, left dinners for everybody, and come out to work.
Coming out was a little delayed by stopping to admire Guffy’s splendid kittens. I have not mentioned these for a few days, but I can assure you that they are coming along beautifully. They are all varieties of tabby, with quite striking markings. Their eyes are open now, and they are almost at the stage of mountaineering out of their box.
They are huge.
Guffy has been a lovely mother. She has cherished them adoringly, snoozing on the chair arm just above them when she wants some peace and quiet, so that she is close at paw if they mew, and they are fat and peaceful and contented, looking rather satisfactorily like Mrs. Tabitha Twitchett’s family.
They are beautiful kittens.
I am not sure that it is all good news.
Such a horrible experience of giving birth does not seem to have done any favours to Guffy’s already struggling musculature, and she does not move as easily as she did. Her hips seem to pain her when she jumps, and I am sorry to say that her dreadful poo problem is as awful as ever.
We are hoping that she will recover in time.
In the meantime she seems very pleased with her little family.
They will be out of their box and being nuisances just in time for Lucy’s wedding.
