The most startling thing about today has been its complete lack of reportable event.
We got up late and it rained.
After that we got ready for work. Once everything was done and packed and tidy and organised, we went back to bed for another sleep.
When we woke up for the second time we went to work.
This is not the stuff that spectacular diary entries are made of.
I am sitting on the taxi rank in the rain. A combination of intoxication and damp seems to have made both the resident and the visiting population of Bowness completely incapable of crossing the road. It is surprisingly hard to reverse on to a busy taxi rank when there is a drunk stag party wandering about behind you wondering which pub they should investigate next.
So far I have managed without actually squishing anybody, although I was tempted when one man staggered in front of a taxi in the middle of the road and started banging on the windows and shouting rude words at the driver. Sometimes I can’t help but think that not everybody is an asset to the gene pool.
I have parked next to Hunor, who everybody thinks is the most affable of young taxi drivers. This is because he always leaps out to open the door for approaching customers. He does this with a charming smile and a flourish and they never guess that it is because the door falls off if you pull on it the wrong way.
One of the other taxi drivers, who is new, came across and told us with great excitement that he can’t bear the taxi rank any more and that he has got a real job working in a pizza restaurant. He has not been a taxi driver for very long so it might be possible that he may still be able to hold down a real job: although I doubt it.
Most of the rest of us are long past that, imagine having to wait until the end of the day – or worse, the end of the week – to get paid. I am no longer capable of that sort of delayed gratification and like to see my money mounting up hour by hour. Also my maximum capacity for reasonable customer relations is about two minutes, any longer than that and my ability to be polite goes downhill rather rapidly. I am not very good at it in the first place.
This chap, however is new enough not to have these difficulties yet, and indeed instead of regarding his time on the taxi rank as valuable peace and quiet to get on with the important things in life, he has been complaining that he is bored. We all know that he is bored because he keeps coming to talk to people, interrupting our tranquil diary writing and crosswords and sudoku and reading. Of course we do talk to one another, we all know each other quite well, but on the whole being able to occupy oneself is an important skill for a taxi driver, especially when it is raining.
I won’t be sorry when it stops.
