Wuthering Dormice (aka Bike) Part 955 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Julie phoned from the salon for me to go and get her as we’d arranged. “I’ll go if you want to get on with dinner,” offered Simon.

“Okay, darling, we’ve got pork chops–I’ll do something different with them.”

“My life, already,” he said sounding like a poor man’s Fagin, “no matter vot you do, the rabbi von’t like it.”

“It’s okay, it’s special kosher pork,” I joked back, “I got it from the halal shop.”

“Okay, fine–see you later.”

I snorted to myself–halal meat is prepared according to Islamic law, and pork is unlikely to figure very much there, any more than it would in a kosher butcher’s. Having said that I remember a friend of my dad who worked out in Saudi Arabia telling stories of Saudis eating ‘holiday’ meat–which was pork. I have also met Jews who love bacon–the piggy-wiggy meat, not the painter, poet or philosopher.

After dipping the chops in cornflour, then beaten egg I covered them in some sage and onion stuffing mix. Then after spraying them with olive oil, popped them in a fairly hot oven, in the bottom of which, I had several good size jacket potatoes and some beetroot which were baking nicely. The rest of the roughage was provided by a green salad I made from a mix of watercress, lettuce and lambs tongue.

Dessert would be a rice pudding that was cooking gently in the Aga, and had been for several hours. If they were really good, they could have a scoop of ice cream in it, too.

Danny had helped me make the rice pud, a favourite of Stella’s–they had it regularly at her school–although I think mine is probably nicer and healthier–until you add the ice cream or even clotted cream.

Leon and Tom came in from the garden, they were both quite muddy–it had rained on and off in the morning, but seemed to dry up in the afternoon a bit more so they started putting in some plants–at least they didn’t need to water them in. The morning was taken up by checking over the mower, which I believe Leon enjoyed more than planting stuff.

The bit of the garden I can see from the kitchen is now covered in cloches or has netting over it, and regular deposits of slug pellets. I keep trying to get Tom to use the beer method of killing slugs–where you use a container with stale beer in it and they are attracted by the smell, fall in, become intoxicated and drown. Probably nicer than chemical poisons and less dangerous to creatures like hedgehogs which eat slugs and snails. The netting is to keep birds like sparrows and pigeons off the new plants.

Whilst I waited for the muddy gardeners to clean themselves up–they went for showers, having hosed down their waterproof suits and wellies–they looked like green astronauts without the helmets–I went online and ordered some of the slug traps which use beer.

Burying jars in the garden reminded me of experiments we did in checking populations of invertebrates, by planting jars level with their tops in soil and waiting for insects and other critters to fall in and drown in the chemical soup contained in the jars. It’s amazing what you find the next day–ants of umpteen species, spiders, centipedes, springtails, caterpillars, slugs and snails and so on–there were no puppy dog’s tails–I did check very carefully.

Simon and Julie were back just in time for Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong to emerge from the showers. It always made me smile that only Nasa could land someone on the moon using a mission named after the Greek god of the sun–Apollo. There’s a huge ruined temple to him on Cyprus, which coincidentally is where Aphrodite is said to have emerged from the sea.

Dinner was a reasonable success, and I even got agreement to try the beer traps from a reluctant Tom. The chops went down very well, with the exception that the kids found it annoying to have bone under the coating–but the adults loved them. One or two of them also loved the rice pudding.

That night, everyone seemed very tired and went to bed early on a promise that on Monday, we’d go to see Henry and Monica at the hotel at Southsea. Julie and Leon decamped to the garden, there’s a little bower seat with some protection over it, where they went to suck out each other’s tonsils much to the amusement of the younger children. I put them to bed, the younger children–duh–and read to them.

At nine, Tom took Leon back home with his bike in the back of the Mondeo, and I had a cuppa and wandered off to bed to read my book, a whodunnit by Simon Brett based at an imaginary seaside town just along the coast in West Sussex, called Fethering. They are very corny, but so well written and despite them being murder stories, they can be very funny–laughing at Middle England and some of its eccentric characters. I picked up a book in a charity shop, The Body on the Beach, which was book one in the Fethering series, so was likely to read some of the others. My time is so limited, reading for pleasure is such a luxury, that I revel in it, much to Simon’s disgust, he was watching the football, I think. Actually, I didn’t care–I was in bed with the urbane and erudite, Simon Brett.

So much for reading–two chapters and I zonked. It wasn’t the book, it was total knackerdom, I couldn’t stay awake. Simon, that is, my husband Simon, removed the book from my clammy little paw when he came to bed at midnight. He even marked my page with a chocolate bar wrapper he found on the floor by the bed–I did say, it was pure pleasure. The sweetie paper must have fallen off when I zonked.

I apparently didn’t even wake while he read for half an hour when he came to bed. I only learned this the next morning, when he told me. I suspect he was hoping I’d wake up and make his night for him–no way–I was still sore from Friday’s efforts.

I woke up with the sun shining through the crack in the curtains, although the forecast said it would be windy. I think I heard the door shutting as Tom went off to church. He wasn’t a regular churchgoer, but Christmas and Easter and now and again was his routine. In short he went when he felt inclined, which sounds better to me than attendance based on autopilot. He said one day he would take the girls–although their attendance at a Catholic school, I suspect put him off.

He’d obviously gone to the early service–so I got up and started some coffee for him–he didn’t eat or drink anything before he went–and I had the bread maker on, so the kitchen smelt wonderful.

The boys were first down, which was unusual–they wanted to ride their bikes, so after a decent breakfast they did just that, going up and down the cycle path near the house. The girls arrived and decided they wanted to ride their bikes too, so they did up and down the drive. Julie managed to rise about lunchtime.

The leg of lamb was roasting in the slow oven of the Aga along with some onions and carrots. I asked Tom if he’d intended to visit the cemetery and he nodded as he ate his toast. I asked if he’d like company. He nodded again.

We slipped away, telling Simon where we were going, but eluding the children who were quite happy on their bikes. I wished I was riding my own, but in some ways, I felt it was also important to show support for Tom and his loss. No matter how long they’d been dead, he still mourned them, but with dignity and respect and love. I hoped I supported him with the same dignity and respect and love.

We placed the flowers on the grave and I stood back while he talked quietly with his wife and daughter. He then asked me to go and talk with them. It was always a slightly surreal experience for me. I don’t believe in life after death and all that stuff, let alone heaven and hell. However, I know by indulging him, he felt some comfort from me, and he said his wife and daughter did too. I can’t comment on that–except to say if I allowed my imagination to drift, I could sense a form of affection near the grave–so maybe he was right and I was wrong. Oh well, one day I suppose we all find out, one way or another.

The rest of the day was quite mundane. We had dinner in the early evening and the kids again went to bed on the promise of Southsea tomorrow. I spent some more time with Simon–my husband, not Brett, and he was more physical than erudite, but he’s quite practised at his art and I’m not complaining.

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