Dusk, dawn and daylight hours
Nov. 20th, 2006 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringIt's difficult driving a cab for seventy odd hours a week and then having time to do everything else. And sleep.
Sunday is my day off, and I spent an awful lot of it sleeping by way of catching up. I finished a fifteen hour shift (the day driver has the weekend off, so I can make the most of the midnight till dawn get-the-nightclubbers-home moneymaking shift and not have to worry about getting the cab back) and basically came home when normal people are having breakfast and then I just conked out.
Later on I got up and gave the cab a good interior clean. My excuse was that I was looking for the source of the rattle that has been plaguing the day driver and I for the past week or so, but it was good to get the vacuum cleaner over the interior and suck up all those little bits of stuff that had worked their way under the mats. I also got a scrubbing brush onto the mats, which i've wanted to do for some time.
I pulled the back seat out so I could get some sort of access to underneath the parcel shelf, which is about the only spot where I haven't checked for the rattle, but on examination that didn't seem to be where it lived. The spare tyre well got a good going over. I'd already given that a look some time back, but this time I did a proper job, pulled out everything, including the filthy spare, vacuumed the well and found a spare screw that had been rolling around loose. I'm not sure that this was the cause, but it's gone, and apparently so has the rattle.
Sunday dinner with the inlaws. My sister in law is suffering from a chronic illness and is just about to go into hospital (again), so this was a good chance to catch up. My father-in-law is down from Queensland and all in all we had a very pleasant evening. I don't get to drink during the week, but I was able to have a glass of wine or two last night, finishing off with choolates and Drambuie. And my father-in-law's awful jokes. But he tells them so well.
The bottom line for me is that I'm driving a cab for the sake of family and friends. It fills up a lot of the spare time in my life, which was previously full of rattling around the house not doing much of anything useful, and it gives me the wherewithal to continue my globetrotting lifestyle in the company of my family. I'm going to New Zealand early next year, but the big trip is in April, when I will get to see many of my online friends in person, and I am going to enjoy showing my children some of the sights that have thrilled me over the past couple of years. The Eiffel Tower, St Pauls, the Golden Gate Bridge, a field of Texas bluebonnets...
I've long wanted to share some of these sights with my wife, who is more of a traveller than I, in her own way, but being able to experience them through the eyes of my teenage children will be an added bonus.
I wonder how they will relate to my online friends. Very well, I expect. My Internet friends are some amazing people, generous and funny, witty and well-read and I take an enormous amount of pleasure in their company. I'd spend twelve hours a day in some tedious factory job for the chance to see them once a year, but it's a special bonus that I can get the money to keep on doing this by cabbing, which is something I really enjoy.
Sunday morning and my last fare of the shift was a night worker coming home from Civic to Tuggeranong. It was great to have a sober person in the cab (not that drunks can't be entertaining) but the highlight lay in coming over the ridge and having the Tuggeranong Valley open up before us, the distant Brindabellas glowing in the soft pink light of dawn, the foothills rising into the light, and the suburbs on the valley floor just waking up, streetlights snapping out, darkness vanishing even as we watched.
It was a special moment for me. Canberra is a beautiful city, and cabbing gives me a special insight into its secret lights. Whirling away down a freeway, just me and a couple of beautiful women in the back. Ducking through a backstreet rat-run with a full cab of raucous teenage partygoers cranking up the radio. An early morning run to the airport with a backpacker, sharing memories of hostels. A philosophical midnight ride over the hills with a gent in a dinner suit. Or just speeding through the deserted night alone on my way to the next job, taking a quick sip of cola and watching out for kangaroos nibbling on the verges.
Itr's all good.
Sunday is my day off, and I spent an awful lot of it sleeping by way of catching up. I finished a fifteen hour shift (the day driver has the weekend off, so I can make the most of the midnight till dawn get-the-nightclubbers-home moneymaking shift and not have to worry about getting the cab back) and basically came home when normal people are having breakfast and then I just conked out.
Later on I got up and gave the cab a good interior clean. My excuse was that I was looking for the source of the rattle that has been plaguing the day driver and I for the past week or so, but it was good to get the vacuum cleaner over the interior and suck up all those little bits of stuff that had worked their way under the mats. I also got a scrubbing brush onto the mats, which i've wanted to do for some time.
I pulled the back seat out so I could get some sort of access to underneath the parcel shelf, which is about the only spot where I haven't checked for the rattle, but on examination that didn't seem to be where it lived. The spare tyre well got a good going over. I'd already given that a look some time back, but this time I did a proper job, pulled out everything, including the filthy spare, vacuumed the well and found a spare screw that had been rolling around loose. I'm not sure that this was the cause, but it's gone, and apparently so has the rattle.
Sunday dinner with the inlaws. My sister in law is suffering from a chronic illness and is just about to go into hospital (again), so this was a good chance to catch up. My father-in-law is down from Queensland and all in all we had a very pleasant evening. I don't get to drink during the week, but I was able to have a glass of wine or two last night, finishing off with choolates and Drambuie. And my father-in-law's awful jokes. But he tells them so well.
The bottom line for me is that I'm driving a cab for the sake of family and friends. It fills up a lot of the spare time in my life, which was previously full of rattling around the house not doing much of anything useful, and it gives me the wherewithal to continue my globetrotting lifestyle in the company of my family. I'm going to New Zealand early next year, but the big trip is in April, when I will get to see many of my online friends in person, and I am going to enjoy showing my children some of the sights that have thrilled me over the past couple of years. The Eiffel Tower, St Pauls, the Golden Gate Bridge, a field of Texas bluebonnets...
I've long wanted to share some of these sights with my wife, who is more of a traveller than I, in her own way, but being able to experience them through the eyes of my teenage children will be an added bonus.
I wonder how they will relate to my online friends. Very well, I expect. My Internet friends are some amazing people, generous and funny, witty and well-read and I take an enormous amount of pleasure in their company. I'd spend twelve hours a day in some tedious factory job for the chance to see them once a year, but it's a special bonus that I can get the money to keep on doing this by cabbing, which is something I really enjoy.
Sunday morning and my last fare of the shift was a night worker coming home from Civic to Tuggeranong. It was great to have a sober person in the cab (not that drunks can't be entertaining) but the highlight lay in coming over the ridge and having the Tuggeranong Valley open up before us, the distant Brindabellas glowing in the soft pink light of dawn, the foothills rising into the light, and the suburbs on the valley floor just waking up, streetlights snapping out, darkness vanishing even as we watched.
It was a special moment for me. Canberra is a beautiful city, and cabbing gives me a special insight into its secret lights. Whirling away down a freeway, just me and a couple of beautiful women in the back. Ducking through a backstreet rat-run with a full cab of raucous teenage partygoers cranking up the radio. An early morning run to the airport with a backpacker, sharing memories of hostels. A philosophical midnight ride over the hills with a gent in a dinner suit. Or just speeding through the deserted night alone on my way to the next job, taking a quick sip of cola and watching out for kangaroos nibbling on the verges.
Itr's all good.
