Blog of randomness- 2 weeks to 8 April 2016

A quiet fortnight as I only worked 4 days as I was celebrating the pagan holiday of Eostre.

Thursday 31 March

Pampered cat

Pat's cat has his own double bedroom and double bed.  Her dog and cat take turns to have the downstairs in her house during the day- the dog in the morning, the cat in the afternoon (or maybe the other way round).  Otherwise they fight like, er, cat and dog apparently.

Lovely Lister

I took a lovely guide dog and his trainer from a pub just outside Harlow.  I was intrigued to learn that the trainer doesn't drink but goes to a pub once a month with the dog and has about three pints.  This, he argues, is not for the pleasure of it but is part of the dog's training, for it to become accustomed to the owner having had a bit too much alcohol.    It makes sense when you think about it.  The trainer explained to me what the dog was doing as we went along- he looked for dangerous obects within reach of the trainer, he rested when the car was moving and woke up when the car came.  I fell in love with Lister.

[Google photo similar to this one]

Friday 1 April

Flying high

I took two young gentlemen within Harlow who had clearly had a very late night, had not had much sleep but were going to work as high as kites.  Although people in this mood can be very friendly there was something that I felt was wrong, possibly a little dangerous.  I just do my best to placate them and not find out whether my sense was right or not.

No particular day

My stupid superstitions

In the last exciting episode of this blog I wrote about my lack of superstition, yet feeling the need to avoid wearing red at Sheffield Wednesday matches as it might cause the team to lose.  Obviously I don't take this last statement seriously, but is just a bit of fun (to pretend to believe it) and football tradition.  I can see that the tradition element is comparable with some religious traditions- surely nobody actually believes that the taking of some bread and wine REALLY means that it turns into human flesh and blood in your mouth?  A fairly revolting concept, by the way, but people go through the ritual anyway.  I can't resist keeping the tradition.

My car mascot with NO RED, not even underpants.

I used to have many superstitions- not walking under ladders, crossing my fingers when I passed someone on the stairs, touching my left collar when an ambulance went blaring past, and probably some others.  As with the football one I never believed that bad things would happen if I didn't follow them but it always seemed more comfortable if I did.  I think I've dropped all of these other ones now.

Who am I?

During the day customers usually call me 'driver' (or 'Mr. Driver' usually only by polite Afro-Caribbeans), 'Paul' (if they know my name) or 'mate'.  In the rare evenings I work I seem to become 'geez', short for geezer.  Is this just a Harlow thing?

Blossom

A few new ones coming but not fully out yet.  This is another one I don't recognise, near Potter Street.  With Pippa's tail.

Chaz and Bill

Last time I wrote about the 2 finger puppets in my cab, William Shakespeare and (I'm sure you knew) Charles Darwin.  A Canadian medical student recently said that she was going to get a tattoo of 'I think' in Charles Darwin's handwriting on her arm, from his notebook when he came up with idea of the tree of life.  I like her idea.