Waiting day

A DAY of waiting. We have an appointment with Neil, the mechanic; he’s due to pick up the car for repair – the vehicle is almost gushing petrol now. We wait, and wait, and wait… My Good Lady rings him mid-morning. No, he hasn’t forgotten about us, he’ll be along this afternoon, he says. Late this afternoon. So we wait, and wait… Teatime arrives. He’s not coming now, surely? No point in ringing the garage at this time, anyway. Perhaps he’ll come tomorrow morning. The trouble is, Neil is more or less a one-man band; things depend on how much work he has on his plate at any one time, and of course how quickly he can get through it. He’s a good chap when he finally gets to us, and his rates are more than fair. But there does seem to be a lot of hanging around, waiting for him to appear.

Evening. We get caught up with the excitement of the US elections. Actually, I nearly sent Obama an email, wishing him well. As the most IT-savvy presidential candidate of all time, I might have even got a reply back from the man himself. I take a modest satisfaction in his success and I hope that when he takes office next January he doesn’t promptly move to the political centre ground, as so many of his Democratic predecessors have done. Commentators say he is the best hope in a generation (those of course who don’t condemn him as an out-and-out communist!) for changing the nature of what it means to be American, and for what Americans expect of themselves. Unenviable task, indeed! But maybe as a black man he has some motivation for at least attempting it. We shall see.