(aka Bike) Part 1275 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad
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We returned home just before Stella, who had squabbled with Gareth. Billie had managed to stay out of it but had felt embarrassed to see two adults going at it hammer and tongs, and they weren’t Simon and I.
“Silly sod, we checked the curtains–most of them were old when the Normans came over. They’re not really suitable for you to alter anyway.”
This was news to me, she hadn’t mentioned me altering curtains before. Rather than add fuel to the fire I just let her rant.
“I mean, we’re like moving him from an ancient thing with tiny little windows and ten foot thick walls, to a relatively modern house with large windows...”
“And paper thin walls?” I suggested.
“Yes–no, the walls are substantial enough.” She stated but I wasn’t so sure, her voice could probably penetrate the ten foot thick walls of his cottage.
“It’s like a cave,” she continued.
“The new house?” I asked winding her up.
“No the old one,” she shook her head in disbelief at my apparent stupidity.
“The one with the resident troll next door?”
She looked at me for a moment and the edges of her mouth cracked in a smile, “Yes, exactly.”
“Did you enjoy helping Auntie Stella?” I asked Billie after Stella had gone to swoon or lie down or something.
“It was okay,” she said obviously not saying all she could.
“Until they started squabbling?”
“Yes,” then she burst into tears, “It wasn’t at all nice then, Mummy.”
I hugged her and patted her back, “I’m afraid getting married and moving house are both very stressful events, put them together and they make it very, very stressful. So even saintly persons like Auntie Stella and Gareth will be prone to squabble.”
“Saintly? Auntie Stella?” she looked up at me.
“I was being ironic.”
“Does that mean you were joking?”
“Effectively, yes.”
“Jokin’ about what?” asked Trish breezing through.
“That’s between Billie and I.”
“Suit yourself,” she walked by muttering under her breath, “That’s between Billie and I–hah.”
Billie looked at me and we both started giggling. At times, Trish can be very unaware of what she says or does and the affect on others. I remember her once asking me what ironic meant, and when she walked off she was muttering, “Ironic, moronic, Byronic, gin and tonic...” I practically had to stick my shoe in my mouth to stifle my laughter. She absorbs words and facts like a sponge but she does tend to muddle them because she works so quickly. If she could slow her mouth a fraction, she’d be lethal, she is so clever.
“Did they decide to save anything after all?”
“Don’t think so, Mummy. Auntie Stella said you were going to alter curtains for her or make new ones.”
“Did she now?”
“I don’t remember her asking you.”
“Peculiarly enough, neither do I.”
“She takes you for granted, doesn’t she, Mummy.”
“A bit, sometimes.”
“That’s wrong isn’t it?”
“Not always, sometimes when you really know someone, you can pretty well predict what they are going to do or say.”
“Are you and Daddy like that?”
“Sometimes, but if we think we’re being taken for granted we tend to say something.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but that’s what we try to do.”
“That’s what I shall do when I’m a married lady.”
“Oh, so who are you going to marry then?” I pretended to be all conspiratorial.
“There’s this boy like, and I think he fancies me, ‘cos he’s always watchin’ when we do sports.”
“Is he watching you or just young women running about?”
“I don’t know, but he like spoke to me when I had to get the ball back.”
“Oh you were playing football?”
“Yeah–I’m rubbish compared to Trish and Danny, but sometimes it’s nice to get out in the fresh air.”
“Which is why I like cycling.”
“Yeah, I do too, can we have a ride at the weekend?”
“Shall we see what the weather is first, and I hate to say it, what everyone else wants to do.”
“I’ll bet Auntie Stella will want you to make the curtains–she said you were a good sewer.”
“How are you spelling that?”
“Sewer?” I nodded. “S-e-w-e-r.”
“That also spells the thing which runs from the toilet.”
“Oh does it?”
“We usually call people who sew, seamstresses or needlewomen, unless they’re men of course but it is less common for men to sew than women. Usually they do embroidery if they do sew.”
“What, men do?”
“Only a few do it, but some of them have been quite famous sea captains or generals.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t have expected men like that to sew, Mummy.”
“You should never judge a book by its cover.”
“Yes I do, if the cover looks crap, I won’t read it.”
“But the saying is that you shouldn’t, because most of the time the cover is drawn by someone other than the author.”
“Yeah, but it gives you an idea of what it’s about, doesn’t it?”
“Perhaps, but the artist’s idea may be different to the author’s or the reader’s.”
“Yeah, it could be.”
“The aphorism...” I watched her eyes glaze over. “The meaning of such a saying is more than just about books. It also applies to people. If you see someone who is all scruffy and dirty you tend to avoid them in case they smell or have some horrible disease.”
“Or are going to rob you.”
“Quite; but they may just be scruffy and dirty because they’ve been working in the garden or allotment, or they might be farmers or cleaning the car.”
“Even if they’re carrying half a dozen bags an’ have a scruffy dog with them?”
Feeling that I might stir up some unfortunate stereotypes I tried to steer the conversation to pastures new.
“Have you seen Danny yet?”
“No, it’s getting dark, so he can’t still be playin’ football can he?”
“I doubt it, can you give his mobile a ring and see where he is? I need to get dinner started.”
Billie went off and came back a couple of minutes later. “He’s not answering, Mummy, shall I go and look for him?”
“Don’t go beyond the drive.”
“Yes, Mummy.” She pulled her coat on and went out to look for him.
Danny can be a bit remiss at times, in that he forgets when he’s involved in something to let us know where he is. I wondered if that had happened today. I decided to try myself. I clicked his name on my mobile and it told me his number was unavailable. I was trying not to worry. He was old enough to look after himself in most situations, and could run quite fast for those he couldn’t handle. I returned to making the dinner.
“Where’s my assistant?” asked Stella coming back downstairs.
“She’s gone to look for Danny.”
“They’re quite close those two, aren’t they?”
“Sometimes, not as much as they used to be, but they do care about each other because they were together in the home.”
“D’you know what that cheeky little mare said to me?”
“No, but I suspect my ignorance will be relieved any moment.”
She gave me a funny look, “I said you’d make my new curtains for me, and that cheeky little minx asked if I’d asked you. I mean.”
“And have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Asked me?”
“What for, you’re my sister.” She strutted out of the kitchen before I could think of a reply.
Comments
Thank you for relieving my fears ....
... re Billie.
Damn you for awakening them re Danny.
Good job again.
And Stella despite some years of being in a service industry as I seem to recall, still seems to require a little 'earthing' occasionally - say 3 or 4 times a day *grins*
Thanks
Julia
This story is 1347 words long.
which makes 1.0564705882352941176470588235294 words per part.
Danny...
Unless Murray knew Danny was playing football and darted off almost as soon as Stella and Billie left, I'd hazard a guess that he hasn't abducted Danny - besides which, although he may have a very bigoted attitude and be willing to expose Cathy in public, I doubt he'd go as far as criminality.
Which then leaves two possibilties - either something's happened to Danny, or he's just a bit late and has turned his phone off. The fact that Cathy's not overly worried yet suggests the latter's more likely, as if he was in trouble, it's fairly likely she'd get an ESP sense of him being in trouble / danger.
Meanwhile, if the word counts are here to stay, if I get sufficiently bored over the next couple of weeks, I might be tempted to add a new data item to the spreadsheet. I hasten to add - if I'm sufficiently bored - as it'll take a while to grab nearly 1,300 different numbers and insert them into the sheet (not to mention clicking the Kudos button en-route for every episode published before its implementation to help boost Ang's already considerable reputation on this site!)
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
Write a program or script to do it?
"Meanwhile, if the word counts are here to stay, if I get sufficiently bored over the next couple of weeks, I might be tempted to add a new data item to the spreadsheet. I hasten to add - if I'm sufficiently bored - as it'll take a while to grab nearly 1,300 different numbers and insert them into the sheet"
Hmm...
It might be more interesting to write a program or script to do it, than to do the job "by hand".
I wonder if Ang and Bonzi will tease us with a part where the word count equals the part number?
Kris
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
Word counts
This seems to be a topic that's arisen recently, with stories here on BCTS now showing their word counts.
The only question I have, is how reliable is it?
For the statistics on the EAFOAB archive, I've based these on the figures provided by MS-Word 2007 (silly, I know).
Bikesode Part 1275 has 1,264 words according to Word 2007, which is somewhat at odds to the 1,347 reported above. Of course, how do we know that we're comparing apples with apples? Does the BCTS thingy count just the story, or other aspects of the page?
I ran into this same problem when I was struggling to churn out the 40k words for NaNoWriMo last November. The word counts reported by Word were always more generous than the word counting facilities provided by the NaNoWriMo organisers:
And now I see other discussions here referring to some Firefox plugin.
I'm afraid that the statistics as reported on the EAFOAB archive (linked below my sig) may be significantly wrong. Aside from counting manually—which just ain't gonna happen—what is the best or most accurate way to determine word counts?
Peculiar Sums
Bike Resources
Bike Resources
Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 1275
Stella is a$$uming that Cathy will do whatever without asking. NEVER a$$ume. When you do, you make ab a$$ out of you and me.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
re-post.
I stuck this on yesterday's episode and thought I'd also post it here..... Cathy is urging Stella to buy new, when she is holding a perfectly good house in trust for Stella? Maybe she is afraid of the feelings that might arise over it, still. She could always hold onto it for Puddin, I reckon. Or Gareth may be leery of moving into the place also? Too small? All kind of excuses.
You misunderstand...
Cathy was encouraging Stella to buy new curtains, rather than re-use the existing ones. The house Stella and Gareth will be moving to was bought by Gareth, and is no more than ten miles away from Tom's house. We don't know how big Des' house was, and it's over in Bristol, which is further away. The Southsea house is still in probate, and if she inherited the Drummonds' house, that might still be in probate as well. The legal profession generally aren't prone to hurrying if they don't need to.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
Cathy has already stated what she intends
Des's house, it's going into a Trust fund for Pud. if she hasnt already started that part, remember UK house prices are likely like USA right now & since Angharad's been pretty much keeping to REAL TIME story timeline. I believe the housing market over there likely isnt much better off than ours is currently.
And I believe it was a 2bdr + photo studio. (or was that studio in 2nd bedroom I forget. it wasnt that big, besides being in wrong location for either person.
Whoops here comes another rubber tree plant.
Where's Danny.
Sould be easy to spot if he's wearing a football shirt.
I suspect another 'venture coming on.
I'll keep on readin' to find out.
KLove and hugs.
Still lovin' it.
Bev.
Growing old disgracefully.
Stress
It worries me that Stella and Gareth would have a fight/argument while there was a child within hearing distance.
Wikipedia has an entry for the Holmes and Rahe stress scale.
Using the adult version of this scale (somewhat questionable, I know), some of the life events being faced by Stella at present include: Marriage [50], Pregnancy [40], Change in financial state [38], Change to a different line of work (?) [36], Change in frequency of arguments [35], Change in living conditions [25], Change in residence [20] and Change in sleeping habits [16]. Okay, so I've made a few assumptions there, not knowing how they're organising their finances, and whether despite Stella being very wealthy in her own right, there's a mortgage. Stella's score is 260 which puts her at moderate risk of illness if we believe this research.
Thanks A+B: Given what we know of Stella's medical history—both physical and mental—I hope there's not going to be some tipping point, and that she does find happiness with Gareth. I'd hate to see her turn into some 'Miss Haversham' type character, doomed never to be the bride.
Public Scraps
Bike Resources
Bike Resources
Hmmm....
Wonder if the fishman may have solved the problem of what to do with him by himself. If he messes with Danny...
Vintage Stella
Vintage Stella
I'm Worried about Danny. What new evil is the Ang-Bonzi cabal plotting for the poor 14yr old ?
So worried, I hate to read the next posting. But I have to.
Karen