And Easter just keeps on going…
I bought everybody an Easter egg as a surprise this morning, including me, because obviously it would be rubbish for everyone else to have Easter eggs and guiltily feel that they ought to share them. Mine was not a surprise, obviously, but it still made me feel very cheerful to start the day. Mark is a bit preoccupied at the moment, with having two jobs, a shed to build and a camper van to fix, so it is nice to know that somebody loves me.
In fact we all started the day feeling happy about Easter. One of the nice things about being a bit forgetful and unreliable about parenting is that if ever you do remember something important, everybody is astonished, and suitably pleased.
Easter Sunday, from our point of view, is like having a second Saturday in the weekend, with the added bonus that Easter Monday starts at midnight, and with it the marvellous Double Time.
Affairs are further enhanced by the happy event that several of the Eastern European drivers are religiously inclined, and have gone to church instead of coming to sit on the taxi rank. This is a fortuitous turn of events, and one for which I am rather grateful to their attention-demanding deity. Six jobs divided between three taxis is a far better result than six jobs shared between eight.
It isn’t as busy as real Saturday, but it is not bad anyway, and we can expect a long evening.
I am on the taxi rank now. We waited until the worst of the day’s traffic started to clear, and everybody started to feel hungry enough to drift into the pubs and restaurants. Then we made our way down to hang around outside them, like basking sharks on coral reefs, or perhaps, in our case, more like great whites on Australian beaches.
We have been mostly preoccupied with the camper van today, although commencement was a bit delayed after Mark had an unfortunate accident with the axe and the washing line whilst cutting firewood. This sort of event is an occupational hazard of the garden being very tiny. Perhaps I should just add, for the benefit of the concerned, that he will be absolutely okay, his face is hardly swollen at all, so you don’t need to worry.
Once he had recovered his equilibrium and felt fit to carry on with domestic activity we went over to the camper van. Mark wriggled underneath it whilst I sat in the front seat, pressing the brake pedal on command, and making polite noises to friendly passers-by. The camper van inclines people to be friendly, somehow, a bit like wearing a large gingham apron and a frilly cap. Even if you have big ears, eyes and teeth, people still smile and trust you.
Once he had finished, I faffed about with clean sheets whilst Mark fiddled with the new electrical bit and started laying underlay on the floor.
This was a magical moment. I have got so very unhappy with the horrible, horrible carpet. This is in the shed now, being dismembered and chucked into the dustbin belonging to the holiday house across the road, a bit at a time because it would not do to be too obvious about these things. On the camper van floor is a layer of pristine underlay and soft grey carpet.
It is grey because it does not show the dirt. Just so you know.
I ate my Easter egg on the taxi rank, and then felt a bit uncomfortably full and sticky. It has not done my quest to be a healthier person much good at all.
Maybe somebody who really cared about me would not have bought such a wicked thing.
Ah well.
Have a picture of Lucy.
