Teenage Taxi Service

With Mrs BW off enjoying herself on one of her courses for the day, I was left i/c of the teenagers and their various social arrangements. This meant that effectively I was just a taxi, but without the benefit of collecting a fare, in fact it was worse because I had to shell out for their various activities.

First out of the block was ferrying the Munch to his riding lesson. Normally the riding school where he has his lesson is a little oasis of calm and peace, but this morning it seemed to be teeming with activity. The pot bellied pig was sulking and grunting in the chicken run and the chickens, a little put out that some of their run was occupied by a large and bad tempered pig, were on edge and nervous. I strolled over to the Munch. He had mounted his horse, Mollie or Nellie or something, so I wandered up to the front end and began stroking the horse. “Nice horse” I said to him. “Yes she is, but she is a bit nervous and highly strung” Now the Munch has a highly tuned sense of humour and he thought it would be fun to swing the horse round at this point so that I was no longer chatting to the front end but was in fact faced with the back or kicking end. Not the best place to be when the owner of the rear end is of a nervous disposition. I beat a hasty retreat and leaning on the fence (I later found out that the strange ticking sound was not some sort of beetle but in fact the sound of the electrified part of the fence) settled down to watch the proceedings. In the field next to me, the owner of the stable was schooling a difficult horse and being watched by the concerned owners. Next door the Munch was having a jumping lesson. His was doing fine but on the third or fourth jump the horse must have remembered an urgent appointment and stopped abruptly, before realising that it was meant to be jumping. Which was all fine accept that the Munch was caught unawares and as they landed over the jump he was thrown sideways and came down on his shoulder. We hurried towards him but apart from a being a bit muddy, he seemed fine and was soon back on and jumping again. In fact filling in the accident book at the stables was more stressful.

After all that excitement taking the Weasel to her drama class should have been easy. Normally she is just taken to the hall and then walks home afterwards but today because Dad is a soft touch she said as I dropped her off, “Can you pick me up at 3.00pm?” I was about to protest but to late “Thanks Dad, don’t be late now!” and she was off into the village hall.

At least the roads will be quiet, and I don’t like association football anyway. And there will still be time to take the washing out and tidy the lunch things away before Mrs BW gets back!