The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1510 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I was on tenterhooks the whole day while waiting for Simon’s meeting with the Bank he bought. Hang on, if he bought it, then surely he could just walk in there and demand people deal with him. Maybe that’s what he did. Knowing Simon, it might have been.

Surely, the person he should be speaking with is their auditor. I looked up the US Bank’s website–the name had been on the news, Kansas Eagle Bank. They had twenty branches all over the state, including Kansas City. It gave a list of directors and President and Vice President–my dad always used to suggest that in American corporations, they were so corrupt, they needed someone to look after the President’s vice. I used to laugh because I thought he meant the thing we had in the garden shed attached to the workbench. I now know that vice can have a very different meaning–mind you I thought venial was something to do with blood vessels.

Talking of which I heard a quote which suggested that, “God gave men a brain and penis and only enough blood to use one of them at a time.” Must remember to tell Si that one when he comes back–maybe not, he’ll think I’m getting at him.

I took the kids cycling–those who wanted to come–it was quite tricky in the crosswind. Well if Bradley Wiggins can get blown off in the TdF, what chance Billie or Trish, or even me staying on. We did stay on but it was such hard work, we cut it short–the ride that is, and instead of going to a particular cafe to have an ice cream, we came home and had one there instead.

Danny had gone to play football with some friends but would be home for lunch. He asked if he could bring some of them home. I said he could if he let me know numbers. I sent Jenny to the supermarket and she bought a pile of large baps–a round flat roll–which I think Americans call burger buns. My only problem with that is the term bun, unless we’re talking hairstyles, a bun is a sweet bread roll or cake, so not something you shove a burger in-or I wouldn’t anyway, it might not taste right with currants.

Back to lunch, and Jenny got a bag of burger baps and a pack of twenty four beef burgers. I already had a big thing of tomato sauce, so I hoped we’d be equipped to deal with a few boys.

We’d got back from our ride and showered when Danny sent me a text, ‘Only 7 comin, couldn’t pussuade the rest.’ I did a quick count, I had lettuce and tomatoes, which I sliced, then I put the whole two dozen burgers in the Aga, half in the hot oven and half in the slow one. We had the same number of wholemeal rolls.

I opened a pack of paper plates and napkins and got ready for the stampede. Amazingly, they didn’t arrive for an hour, so I put the cooked burgers in the slow oven and put the others in the hot oven. By the time the footballers came, they were all cooked and I placed lettuce and tomato in each roll. The boys got two each, the girls got one each and there were enough for Stella, Jenny and me to have one as well. Tom managed to eat two and the littlies had one between them.

I made up some lemonade in our soda streamer thing, and the kids drank all I could make. Finally, I gave them an apple each and told Danny to use the second garage if they wanted to sit and chat. It’s big and has a collection of various chairs in there, stacking ones, some garden ones and even a deck chair. He finally came in at tea time–saying they were all impressed with the burgers and the size of our house. He was glowing with pride when he reported this to me.

I reminded him it was Grandad’s house although we’d paid for the extensions. What I didn’t know, was that Tom had transferred the ownership to me about two years earlier.

After lunch, I returned to my investigations on the bank in Kansas and finally found the name of the auditor. I sent a text to James giving him the link to the website and the auditor’s name. He wrote back saying that was who they were seeing later. I was pleased that Simon had some idea of what he was doing.

I did us a dinner of cheese and ham omelettes with jacket potatoes–we’d eaten most of the salad stuff at lunch, so it had to be coleslaw, which I made freshly–I spoil these kids.

The children were watching some DVD when Simon rang. Trish answered it and of course, they all wanted to speak with him–at least I had time to make a cuppa to take with me to the study, where I eventually spoke with him.

“Hi babes,” he began the conversation.

“Hello, darling, how’s it going?”

“Pretty well–it was the auditors who blew the whistle when the sale of the bank was announced, sadly not in time to stop the money being sent. The President and two of his vice cronies took the money and ran, probably to South America. I hope it’s Argentina, we can declare war on them again and win.”

“Si, we don’t have an aircraft carrier anymore.”

“Bugger, maybe I should get Dad to buy the Ark Royal and the Harriers and send it down to Montevideo.”

“I thought gunboat diplomacy went out with Palmerston and George Canning.”

“Nah, it still goes on, it’s just we don’t have a big enough gunboat any more. I mean with something the size of the Nimitz, most people don’t want to play rough do they?”

“Nimitz? That sounds like something you feed to cats.”

“What? It’s a huge aircraft carrier thing.”

“Oh, like Ark Royal?”

“Yeah, like two Ark Royals joined together.”

“Oh, pardon my ignorance–tell you what, we’ll knit you one.”

“That’s probably the only way the Royal Navy will get one.”

“So what happens next?”

“I get a deposition from a judge to examine the books with the auditors, who think there were two sets being kept.”

“And then what?”

“We’ve already got Federal arrest warrants out on the guys who ran, and once we have the evidence, we go back to court to get our money back.”

“What happens to the Kansas bank?”

“Dunno, if we get our money back, can’t say I care.”

“Yeah but there’s going to be people who lost their jobs and things.”

“They would have anyway.”

“Not if you took over the management, put in a new team, prove Henry wrong.”

“Prove him wrong?”

“Yeah, he said you only ever did what he told you to do.”

“Oh yeah, if I did we’d still be a merchant bank. No, it was my idea to take over the bank which we eventually called High Street.”

“Really?”

“Yes, would I lie to you?”

“You are a banker,” I reminded him.

“Damn, you remembered.” We both laughed. “I’ve got to go if the bank actually looks saveable, I might think about it, but I could be here some time.”

“Just be home for Christmas.”

“God, that’s two months away–geez, I hope to be back long before then.”

“Love you, Si.”

“I love you too, babes. Talk to you soon.” He rang off and I had to go and wipe my nose.