Steamed Up!!

Well it finally happened. After years of mismanagement, has-been players coming and going and bleeding the club dry and the total lack of any manager being able to make us play good football, bar the shouting, Leeds United, the football team I have supported for 35 years are now a League One team. For those of you not in the know that’s not the top division, that’s the third division, a place we’ve never been to before. “Disgusted”, “gutted”, “heart broken” are just a few words that spring to mind but I suppose compared to the worlds larger problems it’s not the end of the world. We’ll be back….one day.

So,“Where have you been” I hear some of you ask? Very busy, very ill (just for a few days) very pissed off, feeling like the world owes me a living, ducking and diving, avoiding my garage the list is endless.

Let’s start with “Avoiding my garage”. Yes it’s back up to £800, the amount owed, yet again. I promised myself I wouldn’t put myself through that again but I have. I actually attempted to pay them today at 8am this morning (Saturday) but they must have stopped opening for those few hours of a Saturday morning because the boss was saying business was bad the last time I spoke to him. Apart from renting cabs out they also rely on private work to stay in business and that work has been thin on the ground apparently. So after not being able to sleep on Friday night because of the anxiety I felt, I wasn’t able to pay them today which in turn messed up my whole Saturday, then my team got relegated (as good as but there’s a glimmer of hope, Bob Hope and No Hope that is) so I stayed home on the busiest night of the week to catch up with stuff, including this blog.

I have also missed the meter upgrade that all my colleagues have been enjoying for the last few weeks. That means I’m earning two or three pounds less per job on average if the job was say £20 or more. I’ll probably have to go on Monday to get the meter sorted after parting with the £800.

In this last week the cab has decided to start overheating every so often. I was doing a run up to Crouch End and after driving up Dartmouth Park Hill and crossing over into Hornsey Lane I not only discovered that Hornsey Lane was closed and had been for the last few weeks according to my passenger but also that there was steam pissing out from under the bonnet and the temperature gauge was in the red. I let the passenger off the £8 fare, waited about ten minutes for the hissing and steam to die down and then drove to the nearest garage in Holloway Road. By the time I got there the hissing and steam had started up again and in my haste to get back to work I yanked the filler cap off and burnt my hand a little. Cold water soon cooled the hand down and filled up my empty radiator. The funny thing was that I had no further problems that night but my eyes were constantly on the temperature gauge. I checked the following morning and a wee drop of water was needed. So there must be a small leak somewhere which will need attention on Monday morning.

I recently spent a day and a half in bed after contracting some sort of bug. My son Michael had it days before me followed by my daughter. It then decided to attack me rendering me useless (more than usual that is) for the best part of two days. It’s at times like these when you realize just how on your own in this job you are. No work, no pay, no sick pay, no nothing. Is this really what I want to be doing for the rest of my life?

Check back soon.