Goodness, it does seem to have been a day of events.
The events started at about half past three this morning, when I was actually in bed. This is not always the case at that time of day, but it had been an uneventful night. Everybody else had buzzed off home and I was left holding the taxi rank by myself. I did not do a single job after eleven o’clock, and even though I was watching a mildly interesting programme on Netflix about a brain surgeon, in the end I gave up and went home.
It is only a mildly interesting programme because it is a drama written by a North London scriptwriter, presumably aged about fifteen, and its central theme is not the many fascinating issues that arise in the day-to-day running of a neurosurgical ward, which is unexpectedly shared with the cardiac ward because the cardiac surgeon is an attractive woman. Its central theme is whether or not the surgeon will learn to identify, and come to express, his hitherto buried emotions. This is a subject in which I have not the smallest interest, and liked him a lot better in the first episode when he was shouting at his juniors with acerbic witticisms and no sentiment whatsoever. I do wish people who think that feelings are important would not be in charge of writing scripts. There are more interesting things in life than endless rubbish about people’s repressed self-pity.
Anyway, having abandoned the brain surgeon, I was mildly concerned to discover that Oliver was not home, and even more concerned to learn, via a telephone call at half past three in the morning, that he had broken down on the motorway.
His gearbox had leaked all of the oil out.
Gearboxes are notoriously difficult to fill.
He was in communication with Mark, so I did not think I needed to worry, and between them they managed to organise him into filling a water bottle with engine oil and somehow squirting it into the gearbox. You will be pleased to learn that this eventually got him home.
I heard him coming in at around five, although my own emotions are the sort that would probably make me a good neurosurgeon, and I confess that had not been worrying about him at all in the meantime. Indeed, I had been soundly asleep and snoring.
He is a capable sort of lad, more than able to sort himself out. I do not wish to become a helicopter parent.
This afternoon when he finally emerged from his own slumbers, we purchased a special Gearbox Filling Tool from Autoparts, and he has refilled it. It is still leaking, but we are hopeful that if he can keep putting oil in it, it will hold out until Mark’s return.
He is going to London next week, so we will need to keep everything crossed.
In the meantime, I occupied my morning with heading round to the library.
The council have introduced a lot of new taxi policies, and have invited us all to a series of drop-in meetings to discuss them, and today there was one in Windermere.
The new policies have been the topic of much heated discussion on the taxi ranks. Wild paranoia has abounded, not the least of which being that the council is in cahoots with Uber to draw up a dastardly masterplan to put us all out of business, to wear a black hat, and to make a play for world domination.
I have done my best to scupper some of the more nonsensical outbreaks, but to no avail.
Today was our opportunity to beard the lion in its den, and to find out exactly what is going on.
I already know exactly what is going on, because I have been pestering the council for months, and hence have had it all explained to me in minutely tedious detail, but I went to the meeting anyway.
I was the only one to show up.
I was suitably livid about this, because of all the irate ranting that has been happening on the taxi ranks, and it made me very cross indeed that nobody bothered to go and actually find out the truth.
I had a very pleasant chat with the council officers, listened to their courteous observations, told them my opinions in no uncertain terms, and departed.
I went on the taxi WhatsApp group and harangued everybody. Then I called some of the more vocally strident objectors and insisted that they show up at the Library immediately.
I thought this might be funny, and only regretted that I would not be there to listen to the consequences.
Apparently several of them turned up. I heard the reports afterwards.
It sounds as though the meeting became considerably more exciting after I had left.
I have crossed Council Officer off my list of things I might like to do for a living when I grow up.
