The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2319 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Why is it that everyone bar me can see Billie when she appears? I’m not frightened of her, I loved her alive so I love her in any way I’m able. I hope she knows it. I still can’t go with this life after death stuff. Perhaps what the others see is something that’s created in my mind and projected into theirs? It might explain why I can’t see her yet the others do.

I drove home hoping that she’d have been pleased to have a centre named after her. We might just have to explain to any American visitor that it’s named after my daughter not their ageing tennis star.

The trees that had been felled would be cut into logs and used in a wood burner to help heat the place in winter. There would also be solar panels and a few other energy generating or saving features. The hot water would come from capillary tubing panels on the roof, it’s amazing how effective they can be, especially on sunny days, which is when we’re most likely to have most visitors.

Back at home, the girls divested themselves of wellie boots, which somehow they managed to con their grandfather into cleaning for them. Danni went for a rest while the others went for a bicker in the garden. I decided to let them sort it out themselves and instead fed Lizzie who seemed to be growing at a rate of knots.

While I fed the baby, Cate and Puddin’ played quietly together on the rug in front of me with an old tea set of Trish’s. I’d have killed for one when I was a young un. I did eventually con my mother into allowing me to buy one when I pretended to want play at cafes, except I would be the waitress in my own imagination. The wonderful thing about imagination is that it happens inside your own head and without specialist equipment no one knows what you’re thinking. In some ways I hope that never changes although they reckon they can guess from the different parts of the brain being active. Knowing my luck, all they’d find is my brain is mostly designed for shopping or counting dormice.

I thought back to the Christmas when Billie and Danni arrived, at that time I had no idea how things were going to turn out, especially as Danni was so boyish. I suspect that was how he really is and the girly stuff is adapted behaviour in the same way that I could pretend to be a boy in school because it helped me not get beaten up quite so often. But it wasn’t my natural behaviour such as I displayed in nursery and frightened the nursery care staff and my parents. It must have been so obvious what I really was but no one would take it on board preferring to believe I was gay, and a good woman would sort me out. They were right, a good woman did sort me out, Stella, knocking me into the middle of next week. How she didn’t kill me is nothing short of miraculous.

The palm of my hand itched and I glanced at it while I scratched it. I looked at my life line. I couldn’t remember which line was which and surely all that guff about reading palms and so on can’t be true—we aren’t fated to have this or that happen except by our genes and social/cultural programming. While events might not be by pure randomness, we might cause something to happen without knowing it such as telling someone we were at home one night and then being surprised when they called by.

As for life after death—I didn’t see how it could be. I’d never believed in it even though those who campaign for reincarnation and there are some quite intriguing stories about children saying things to their parents they shouldn’t know about, believe it proves their case. While all of it is mind blowing, I suspect unconscious learning is much more likely to be shown to be the cause than being a previously existing spirit which gets recycled—not that I have a problem with recycling things—it’s a good idea.

I’d taken some photos of our expedition to show Henry and Si how things were developing at the centre and I'd uploaded them to the computer when the doorbell rang. No one seemed to hear it so I had to go and deal with it. It turned out to be Cindy—could have done without her here today and so could Danielle who looked very tired when we got home.

“Are we going to have any lunch today?” asked Trish as I was speaking with Cindy. Glancing at my watch I realised it was half past one, no wonder she was hungry and making rude enquiries.

Cindy had had her lunch before coming over. I sent Trish up to tell Danille that Cindy was here and to come back and help me do some lunch. We had some sliced ham in the fridge and plenty of bread, so I did some ham salad sandwiches. Cindy managed to eat one despite not being hungry, as did everyone else. Stella and Jacquie it seemed waited until we came back rather than get one for themselves. At times it really did make me cross. “I looked in the fridge but thought I’d better not eat the ham in case you had something in mind for it.” Was how Stella denied her laziness.

I was reminded that David was due back to do dinner. He should have been back at breakfast but he got stuck somewhere in Cornwall—the car played up and they had to have a garage look at it. As I cleaned up the dishes so his car pulled into the drive and he parked behind his cottage. Hannah came over and brought me some clotted cream fudge, which I shared with everyone. That way we'd all get fat rather than just me.

An hour or so after this, David arrived in the kitchen and began collecting bits for dinner. I made some fresh tea and withdrew to the dining room where Cate and Puddin’ resumed their waitressing and I had to drink countless cups of pretend tea as well as the real one I had beside me. I also had to pretend to eat invisible cakes and say how yummy they were and the two little ones squealed with laughter each time I did, a familiar scenario to anyone who’s raised girls.

Simon and Sammi got home early for some reason and after he’d changed and we were waiting for David to finish in the kitchen, Simon asked me about the visit to the woodland centre.

“I can do better than tell you, I can show you,” I said remembering the pictures I’d been uploading when Cindy had arrived. He followed me through to the study and I rebooted the computer and called up the photos.

At first I began to think there was something wrong with the camera because on pretty well every photo there appeared to be like a ball of light, which I assumed must be some sort of internal reflection in the camera.

However, when we got to the end one which featured a group photo taken by the architect of the girls and me, there alongside me was the light again and inside it a smiling face of Billie. The hair on my neck stood on end and I felt quite ill.