Views on life, love and laundry from the lady behind a Dial-a-Cab driver...

Let me introduce myself. I'm the unsung heroine of London, the low-flying career woman with no life coach, just two grown-up children and an old cat. The ace in my deck that life has dealt me is one of the original gentlemen from the "old" gentleman's circuit; Dial-a-Cab's own Whisky 88 - who I'd like to call Glen as in Glenlivet or Glenfiddich! You get the connection...
Glen plays tennis while I toil in an Islington law office and I'm "Home Alone" while he's on the streets, "the Raft" or on the "Finz" - whatever that is - in his red Metrocab. He loves account work and loves it most of all when the passenger is late and he can pass the time, meter ticking, by ringing me on his mobile to have a chat.
We met six years ago and had our first kiss in the back of his taxi. We debated politics - as you do with cabbies! With this one, though, I couldn't protest his alarming views by slamming the door and under-tipping - he was too funny. He courted me with gifts that had been returned by the PCO after being unclaimed by

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their owners - two umbrellas, a beaver hat and a half bottle of perfume. I knew it was serious when he bought a taxi with the luggage space replaced by a comfy passenger seat for me to ride high around London...
I'm geographically challenged and Glen adds hours to my week with directions via mobile phone when I'm lost. I now know after 16 years in London that the Strand connects to Fleet Street, but not why we call Strand THE Strand, when we call THE Bishop's Avenue just Bishop's Avenue?
My daughter is a journalist and part-time DJ. Her favourite

wind-up for Glen is to tell him she has come home by minicab! He goes stiff, his face turns red and his veins start to throb. But usually before he even starts his safety lecture, she doubles up giggling and says something like: "As if I would!" But after a few weeks she pulls it again, and again he falls for it.

My son is a student revolutionary. He and Glen have settled down to discussing safe things like where to find good Italian cooking ingredients such as black truffles and whether Citizen Kane is over-rated. And Glen can always shut him up with a London poser like, "Which tube station has no letters from the word mackerel"? (Answer next month.)

I'm honoured to be writing about my life for Call Sign and it should keep me out of mischief during those long hours after 7 pm.

See you next month.

Poppy

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