Whilst today has been marginally less troubling than yesterday, it has not exactly been a walk in the park, or even a walk up a steep fell in the rain.
It has been Difficult.
My new taxi-to-be is not working. It was due to go for its MOT tomorrow but it will not be attending.
It has now got an MOT-failing light on the dashboard telling us that the new bit that we purchased the other day has now blown.
We are going to have to get another bit from somewhere.
Goodness knows where.
I am not thinking about that. Indeed, I am trying very hard not to think about it. I was thinking about it until almost four o’clock in the morning this morning, with Mark’s wearily sleepless help.
We were thinking about VAT as well.
VAT turned into a terrible worry almost until daylight, although after some fitful sleep we discovered this morning that it would be all right. Since Mark earns all of his cash out at sea at a distance which is further than twelve miles away from the nearest beach, for some arcane but nevertheless much appreciated legislative reason, we are not liable to pay VAT on it.
We are not allowed to charge VAT either.
We spent this afternoon visiting an accountant. It was not our own accountant. We had been wondering if we should perhaps try a different accountant with a new approach, but decided in the end that we would not, because we like our accountant. Also he does not get in a flap about anything and knows what he is talking about. This is a Good thing because I am clueless.
Since all matters of charging and paying taxes involve an awful lot of scowling and pencil-chewing and sighing, I was more relieved about the VAT discovery than I can possibly tell you. Mark was relieved as well, although his relief has been mitigated by the other terrible worry. This is the one about the new taxi.
We do not know why it keeps stopping, possibly because it has got the wrong accelerator pedal on it. Or the wrong alternator. It certainly has got something wrong, but until Mark manages to work out what it might be, we are at a complete loss.
We did not go to work. We are having another night off.
Last night’s night off was not exactly relaxing because of the worries about taxis. Oliver and his friend the rocket scientist joined us for an excursion to the Indian restaurant, where the waiter that we know has left and we were most discomfited to find that the new one did not know what we wanted to eat. When we explained that it was Mango Butter Chicken he did not know what it was and had to go and ask in the kitchen, because it turned out that the old waiter had just made it up and we were the only people who ever ate it.
Fortunately in the kitchen they still knew what it was and so that was all right.
When we got back we tried to blot out all of our taxi troubles with an hour in front of the television. We watched something called The Office, which was funny, in a distressing sort of way, because it was set in the nineteen nineties, and I had completely forgotten all the peculiar things everybody thought and felt then. In any case, I like films like that, the sort that very definitely does not feature little girls being rescued from floods or earthquakes or dinosaurs or burning buildings by courageous American heroes.
Indeed, there wasn’t anybody American in it at all, they were all English, and although I would like to think that they would have managed to muster some courage if there had been a dinosaur or an earthquake, probably they would just have run away really.
If you have not watched it and would like to be reassured that you never, ever wanted to work in an office, I can promise you it is perfect. It made me feel very glad indeed that all of my attempts to have any kind of career anywhere have completely failed. There are worse things than being a taxi driver, most especially working in an office.
That might not be true tonight, even without the VAT.
I do wish we could work out what was wrong with the wretched taxi.
LATER NOTE: He has fixed it. It was the accelerator pedal.
MOT here we come
