The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1334 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Trish was checked out by an ophthalmologist who could find nothing wrong with her eyes and thus concluded her temporary blindness was due to concussion or shock. It happens. I stayed with her while he examined her, although he had an unpronounceable name, at least to my mouth. I thanked him and he left.

It was decided as Trish was under Dr Rose, she couldn’t be discharged until he said so. She’d had breakfast on the ward and I ran up to the hospital restaurant and had some toast and a cuppa–I still wasn’t hungry. My mind was running through what I recalled of my dream–I should write them down.

Most peculiar of all was that Trish saw or felt the bear with me when she woke, which I didn’t see but certainly felt. Bears and Old Testament–doesn’t really make any sense does it? Mind you, nothing does about any of this, leastways to me it doesn’t, you might say it doesn’t bear thinking about.

What was with the Bear motif? It made no sense–although one might draw parallels with the Romano-British war lord of Arthur as being some sort of archetype stuck in the back of my brain–all British children learn about King Arthur. I even knew enough to criticise an encyclopaedia which described him as an English king who fought the Saxons.

He was Romano-British, the English post date the Saxons, and he was reputedly fighting the Saxon invaders and his downfall came from betrayal, at least according to the mythologies which were mostly medieval in origins–so might have been pure fantasies built on oral traditions modified to fit the needs of the day. So the discovery of a nobleman and his wife at Glastonbury Abbey, were seen as politically convenient to be identified as Arthur and Guinevere. What they didn’t say was that this was put about by the King who was essentially Norman French, and the Abbots of Glastonbury who were trying to prove precedence over Canterbury in terms of earliest origins. It’s ironic that they were hundreds of years later than the churches and monasteries of the Celtic church. They were all eventually subsumed by the Church of Rome–who acted as ruthlessly as its military namesake had hundreds of years before. Augustine was no saint but an artful politician.

I still didn’t know what Rupert Bear was doing in my dreams or possibly accompanying me in healing Trish, nor how it fitted with an Old Testament goddess, nor was I that worried about it, it was more curiosity than complaint. Let’s face it we carry the integration of many cultures in our daily lives–we eat foods from abroad, drink teas from Asia, wear clothes from all over, shoes from South America or Viet Nam, I drive a German made car–and religion, even that of the Church of Rome is mainly a mixture of paganism, Judaism–which has lots of Egyptian and Canaanite paganism in it, plus a bit of this and that–a real religious cocktail, but it’s proved very successful so far in lasting nearly two thousand years–not bad for something built on sand.

I returned to Trish and awaited the royal progress of the consultant and his entourage–it didn’t happen. Sam Rose popped over before he started his ward rounds and clinics.

“I’m discharging Trish because I think she’s well again, perhaps she needs glasses if she can’t see things as big as trees.” He said this deliberately in her earshot because he knew she’d react.

“I did see it, just not soon enough.”

“Yes, you had a real close-up view of it didn’t you, sweetheart?” I added.

She huffed and folded her arms over her chest in a real little girl sulk. All that was missing was the pout and that came moments later. Sam thought it was hilarious.

“Right, young lady, if you behave I’m going to give this prescription to your mummy and you can start a very low dosage hormone. Her levels are too low according to our resident endocrinologist, so we try another blood test in three months. There’s also one for Billie, so you won’t have to bring her back in either. I’m giving her a testosterone blocker and small dose hormone.”

“What about the ones she’s already got?”

“Scrap those and go with this–I’ve spoken to Stephanie and she’s quite happy with my regime. We don’t normally do this for children as young as this, but these are exceptional individuals and circumstances alter cases.”

“You’re not going to be in any trouble about this are you, Sam?”

“No, I reserve the right to act based upon my own experience and clinical judgement.”

“You do your own thing then?”

“Only when I feel it’s justified–and this is.”

“I owe you a dinner, would you come by for one some time soon?”

“Okay, give me a ring in a week or two.”

“We’d love you to come, wouldn’t we, Trish?”

“Oh yes, Mummy, Dr Rose is my favourite quack.”

“I beg your pardon, young lady, but I am not a quack doctor.”

Trish blushed and was so embarrassed she didn’t notice him wink at me. “Sorry, Dr Rose, it’s what Daddy calls doctors.”

“Does he now? It’s perhaps as well that he’s too old to see me or I might have something to say about it.”

Suitably embarrassed, she gave him a hug and peck on the cheek and I took her home. The black eye had mysteriously not got any worse and was even fading quite rapidly, as was the cut and bruising on her forehead and scalp. So she only looked as if I beat her about lightly, not seriously.

She received a hero’s welcome upon her return, or should that be heroine? The girls were all fussing her as was Jenny. I sat with Simon who held my hand. Danny came up to me and said quietly, “I’ve missed you, Mummy and I’m glad you’re back home.”

“That’s very kind of you to say so, darling.”

He blushed, looked suitably embarrassed and said, “The food is so much better when you’re home.”

Simon nearly wet himself laughing and I accepted the compliment, albeit in backhanded form.

We were altogether, except for Stella, and Easter was fast approaching. Would Trish ask again for me to take her to church? If so did I swallow my agnostic pride and go with her or ask Tom to take her? I’d wait and see–she had plenty to think about as it was.

I left them all with Simon while I went to buy them little Easter presents. They get enough chocolate as it is, so I went looking for alternative gifts. Danny got a football game for his computer; Billie some new clothes; Meems–a new bed for her dolls; Livvie had a new CD and Trish–well, she got the biggest teddy bear I could find. Puddin’ and Catherine got new soft toys too, Pud got a Tigger from the Pooh stories and Catherine, a new soft doll–which hopefully she wouldn’t eat this time.

I bought Daddy a haggis which I’d cook for him one day soon and Simon got a book he wanted. Jenny I gave a box of chocolates to, and Julie, who was last but not least, got some obscure hairbrush that took me an hour to find. I won’t try to describe it, except it looked like the kind of thing that would be useful for shoving in a drawer and forgetting.

I sent a bouquet of flowers to Stella from all of us and promised to visit soon. What about me? I had my family, what else could I need? Oh okay, some flowers magically appeared on Easter morning along with a large pack of Ferrero Rocher chocs, the originator of which died recently. I hope he died knowing what pleasure he’d given to thousands of men and women over the years–this one especially, I love ‘em.