I am rushing to write this in a hasty interval between my shower and collapsing into bed.
I am glad I have had my shower first. It means that I have a completely clear conscience. Only these words stand between me and my bed, which is a very contented feeling.
I want to be in bed before midnight, which is in twenty minutes, so I will not be dawdling about.
I have not been to work. Judging from the messages I have been getting on my phone from other taxi drivers, neither has anybody else. Zsolt, who didn’t think of an excuse quickly enough, was by himself and has just told me that he had three jobs all night. That is rubbish, so I am glad I missed it. If I had been there it would have been one and a half jobs each.
I did not go to work because of having had a very busy day, and also because I have got to get up early for the Very Important Meeting with our beloved leaders tomorrow. I wrote them a long letter detailing all of my arguments down this morning, as soon as I was dressed, because I did not want to waste my entire walk over the fells pondering it and writing myself text messages of the points I needed to remember.
I emailed it to them, and then, as an afterthought, copied it to the rest of the taxi drivers to check if they thought there was anything I had missed. I was expecting a torrent of complaints, but actually everybody was quite astonishingly nice, not like taxi drivers at all, so perhaps it is hopeful.
I am going to get up extra-early and empty the dogs before the meeting starts. When I told the other night-time taxi drivers what time the meeting was – it is at half past nine – they were all horrified and sympathetic. We do not do mornings, apart from the bit before six, when we generally go to bed.
I was relieved when the letter was written, it has been mildly troubling for a week or so. A very lot hangs on this. If they listen to Uber instead of to us then we will all go broke.
I had determined to make the absolute most of the day, and it wasn’t raining, so when I got back I sawed up some more firewood. Oliver came out to help me, and we cut up the last of it, which caused me a small panic until I talked to Mark later and he explained that he had already sawn up a large pile of wood during his last visit home, and it is sitting in the shed. All I need to do is to go and get it.
This was a colossal, liquid relief. I do not need to worry about firewood any more.
After the firewood I did another thing that has been hanging over me, I am truly making inroads into my horrible Christmas Guilt Bonanza.
I went to Asda, because it is cheap, and purchased cheap chocolate and tonic water and mustard and gin and condensed milk so that we will be stocked up for Christmas,
This was a bit remiss of me, because I usually shop at Booths, which, incidentally, has been named in the august Daily Telegraph as being the purveyor of the nation’s very finest smoked salmon. I went to Booths afterwards, because I like eating nice things and only buy cheap things that don’t matter, really I can’t tell the difference between jars of mustard. Anyway, I bought some salmon and stuck it in the freezer, we will have salmon for breakfasts over Christmas.
This was also remiss of me, because usually I only purchase fish in Marks and Spencer, because they are the only ones who promise that they do their best to be kind to the fish, but their salmon did not get nearly as many stars so I ditched my principles because I am a villain in my inner soul and because I really like oak smoked wild salmon, and the Daily Telegraph was right about the Marks and Spencer one not being as good.
It is midnight. I am going to have to stop.
I must just tell you about my last great Inroad.
I have decorated the Christmas tree.
This was lovely. We buy decorations when we go somewhere nice. There was one from Windsor Castle from when Number One Daughter got her MBE, and one from Ripon Cathedral from the carol services there. There was one from House of Bruar symbolic of much wasted time and cash, a black sheep sent to me by my sister, and a lovely one with an otter painted by Ritalin Boy when he was small.
It was full of memories, and I spent the evening sighing happily and feeling contented.
Then it got late.
It is late now.
I really must go to bed.
