A good night

I haven’t stopped at all since my last post. The last quarter of the year is always so busy that you don’t have to put in as many hours to take your money. The saying “make hay while the sun shines” has never applied to me, probably why I’ll never be a millionaire.

I spent Sunday re-installing Windows XP on this computer. It had been going slower and slower by the day and I’d finally had enough. It took me ages to back all my files up, an age to re-install and an eternity to get things back to how I like them. I started at around 8pm when I should have been leaving for work and finally put my head down at 7am. I had to take my daughter to school at 8am and finally got back to bed and to sleep by 9am Monday morning. I was in such a deep sleep that I never heard the postman ring the bell to deliver a parcel (he left a card to collect it at the sorting office) and neither did I hear the phone ring right next to my ear but it was nice to have a good sleep which helped me work well tonight.

First thing I had to do before work was to change a wheel as I came out to find it flat. As I removed the hubcap I could see the six nuts were rusty and look like they hadn’t been removed in years. The wheel brace that comes with the cab is completely useless in situations like this and luckily my son Michael has got a tool set from his previous job as a mechanic. With the aid of a power bar, a 37mm socket and a few squirts of WD40 I managed to loosen all the nuts and was able to change the wheel in about 10 minutes. The flat had a screw embedded in it. That’s the second puncture I’ve had in a month luckily I don’t have to pay for the tyres.

My first job was a fare from Paddington Station to the Conrad Hotel in Chelsea Harbour. There was absolutely no traffic when there should have been especially as I was driving through Earls Court, a very busy area. As we pulled up at the hotel the passenger exclaimed “Wow! That was fantastic. That’s the quickest I’ve ever been driven here and also the cheapest”. I always struggle to respond to these sorts of comments and only managed to mumble something along the lines of “It’s nice to get it right from time to time”. His obvious elation at the fantastic journey never extended to a decent tip as he rounded the fare up 40p to £14.

I ranked up a few times at Victoria. The beggar is well and truly back. I blanked him about 8 times in the last week. I see plenty of other cabbies handing over money to him which only makes him think he’s on to a winner and keeps him coming back for more.

I had a spell tonight where I couldn’t get out of North London. Every job took me straight back there. Finally I trapped a job going well south, to Southwark. It was a gay German guy who wanted a club in the Arches on Southwark Street. When I got there it was closed and he looked upset, he must have been looking forward to the night out. I asked if he’d been told it was open and he said he’d simply got the clubs name and address off the internet. He asked if I could recommend a nice gay club and I told him that I knew of gay clubs but couldn’t comment on what goes on inside not being gay myself. I ended up taking him in to the West End and dropped him off at The Village in Soho.
As I drove away from him and turned left into Wardour Street a couple in evening dress waived me down and asked to be driven out to Chiswick, another good paying job. As there are ongoing road works which have closed off Bayswater Road I had to go a slightly longer route (hehe). They were happily chatting to each other the whole way and never batted an eyelid when I asked for the £27 fare. “Thank you very much driver that was excellent. Here’s thirty pounds. Good night” If only all jobs could be like that.