The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1450 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

My intentions were to go shopping for a new gravy boat even though we may not need one for a few days. I hadn’t been shopping for ages other than food shopping, so I felt I deserved a few hours out.

Jenny, as an act of penance agreed to look after the children while I went to the city centre and looked for the aforementioned crock. However, as my story seems to show repeatedly, plans and fruition seem often to be separated by this thing called life.

I was just about to leave when my mobile peeped to indicate a new text message. I checked it. ‘How u doin ? Sian’ Instead of replying I called her. “Hi Siân.”

“Cathy, there’s a nice surprise.”

“I was just about to play truant from my infants. What are you up to?”

“Nothing much, it’s my day off.”

“How about we get together–I have some shopping to do–but it shouldn’t take more than a few months.”

“We could do lunch as well.”

“Sounds good to me, hold on while I tell the household slave I’m going to be longer than I originally intended.” I spoke with Jenny who upon learning I was going to Salisbury, said she’d like to have come as well. I pointed out that such onerous labours were the responsibilities of rank and seniority.

“I thought you were going shopping?” she asked looking bemused.

“I am–byeee.” I turned and walked briskly from the house and was down the drive before anyone noticed my car had gone.

The drive to Salisbury was tedious, two sets of road works with traffic lights and then some moron in a four wheel drive had managed to drive it up a rather large oak tree and the police were in attendance.

It really gets my goat, these imbeciles who drive these things and who rarely ever take them off road unless it’s to mount the pavement to run a red light or drop darling Trixie off at private school. They should ban all 4 x 4s unless they’re owned by a farmer. I felt happier with that idea until I remembered I wasn’t driving my little runabout any more and blushed.

Somehow the traffic in Salisbury was running freely and I had to check I was in the right city–it’s usually a nightmare. I crossed the city and headed for Wilton which is where Siân and Kirsty lived. My sat nav took me pretty well to the door–of the wrong house but I was able to correct the mistake and pulled into their drive.

“So this is where the great and the good of Salisbury reside,” I said to my friends after giving them hugs.

“Nah, neither great nor particularly good,” suggested my friend.

“Just wealthy?” I offered.

Siân riposted, “I’m not married to a banker like someone we know,” and Kirsty sniggered.

“Hey, you two, I didn’t marry him for his money–although I have to admit it comes in handy.”

“Come and have a coffee, Cathy,” said Kirsty going back into the house, however, Siân and I were so into our conversation neither of us heard the invitation, so we both laughed a few minutes later when Kirsty shouted: “Coffee, Cathy, come.”

Siân led me into the house–an old Victorian detached property on three storeys plus a cellar. While Kirsty finished the coffee, Siân gave me the grand tour–it was huge: five bedrooms, three reception, a kitchen, three bathrooms, a cellar comprising a two bedroom self contained apartment which they let to a young couple who worked for the Earl of Pembroke in the nearby Wilton House. It needed some further restoration but it was going to be some house.

We returned to the kitchen and drank the coffee chatting with Kirsty. “So you two rattle round in eight rooms and a kitchen?” I cheekily asked.

“Yes, we both have a study–Siân needs one for her paperwork and I need somewhere to write my sermons and do my pastoral work.”

“Pastural work,” I joked, “You look after sheep and cows do you?”

“Only Siân’s friends,” she snapped back very quickly.

“I suspect you’ve been asked that one before,” I offered as a peace token.

“You guessed right.”

“So how’s life in the cathedral?” I asked trying to switch the subject.

“It’s fine thank you when we’re not overrun with sheep and cows or tourists.”

“And they’re still okay with you two living together?”

“Yes–they don’t exactly ask, and I don’t volunteer–the bishop knows, but he’s pretty laid back about it–others suspect–but we haven’t made too much of it, so they are just guessing.”

“I’ve never understood why it becomes a religious issue, it’s not as if you’re known adulterers.”

“What?” Siân gasped.

“Well, it doesn’t say in the ten commandments that you can’t marry who you love, just that you mustn’t covet his arse or his wife.”

“I think that reads ass, not arse, Cathy,” Kirsty corrected me sniggering.

“Okay, so that’s adultery and bestiality that’s illegal, what about same sex relationships?”

“That’s mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament, but its validity in a modern world is questionable.” Kirsty continued, “Culture in Palestine a few hundred years BC would be very different to today’s, they would face very different challenges and issues–so I practice what it says in the New Testament–love thy God and thy neighbour as thyself.”

“If you were living on the Green in Salisbury, next to the cathedral, would God be your neighbour and would you need the first bit in the exhortation?”

“Smart arse,” giggled Siân.

“What the one I coveted of my neighbour?” I threw back at her.

“Has your neighbour got a nice arse then?” she fired back to me.

“Has she? No–she’s about a hundred and ten, has more hair on her face than Tom, and walks with a limp–she does however, have a donkey.”

“I didn’t think you had any neighbours?” Kirsty queried.

“Not immediate neighbours, no, she lives a couple of miles down the road.”

“And she has a donkey?”

“Yes, Siân, she has a donkey.”

“I love donkeys,” she said, “ever since we rode them on Weston beach–d’you remember?”

I hadn’t, “Are you sure it was me?”

“Yes, Cathy, because the woman who ran the donkeys thought you were a girl–remember?”

“No,” I shook my head, this was one bit of memory which had slipped away.

“Right,” Siân took a deep breath, “my parents took us and because it wasn’t that nice we didn’t change into our cozzies but stayed in our ordinary clothes. You however, fell over in the mud–don’t ask me how–and we cleaned you up but the only clean clothes we had were a pair of my shorts and a frilly top, which you borrowed and wore seemingly unself-consciously. I called you Charlie and she assumed you were a girl–your hair was quite long in those days, too.”

“You know I can’t remember any of that–I remember we went to Weston and Clevedon a few times with your parents and even over to Wales a couple of times–but that one is a blank.”

“She’s in denial,” laughed Kirsty.

“No she fell in de-mud,” quipped Siân–hold on, I might still have a photo of it.” She jumped up and ran off upstairs.

“She could be hours,” sighed Kirsty, “What were you shopping for–anything in particular?”

“Yes, Jenny and I managed to break Tom’s ancient gravy boat. I need to look for a replacement.”

“I think we’ve got a spare one here somewhere,” she rose and went to a large cupboard. “This any good?” she placed a porcelain boat and saucer on the table.

I picked it up, “It’s beautiful, Kirsty,” I said as I examined it–“Gosh, it’s Royal Doulton.”

“So, it’s only a crock and it doesn’t go with any of the china we use so if it’s of any use, do have it.”

“Goodness, let me pay you for it?”

“Okay–you can buy me lunch.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Deal,” I offered her my hand and we shook on it.

Siân reappeared with an envelope full of ancient photos, “Here–see it is you–wearing my clothes–nothing new there then.” I took the photo and looked at the two figures sat on the donkeys–it looked like two girls. “And this one,” she handed me another, the same two girls were eating ice creams on the pier. I showed them to Kirsty.

“Want me to do some copies?” she asked.

“Yeah, then you can prove to your kids you had a girlhood as well,” suggested Siân.

“Yes please,” I said to Kirsty, and to Siân, “That would be a bit of sleight of hand wouldn’t it?”

“No, you’re dressed as a girl, and believe me, you acted like a girl most of the time, which was why my parents were happy to have you come with us–they knew you’d behave yourself, like any other little girl.”

“Did they actually say that?” I gasped.

“More or less, when I told them you’d become Cathy, my mum replied, ‘Hardly a surprise is it?’ and Dad just said, ‘Well, he was more girl than boy anyway–I hope she’ll be happier.’ Dad always was the laid back one.”

“Pity they couldn’t have said something to my parents,” I mused aloud.