The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1452 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I had time to reflect on my afternoon with the girls. I liked them very much but wondered if Kirsty’s need for religion and my dislike of it would act as a barrier between us. Siân if I remembered correctly from our distant past wasn’t too bothered one way or the other–I can’t believe her medical training would have changed her mind except away from supernatural explanations, so how did she end up with Kirsty?

It appears that Siân was doing her houseman’s job, otherwise known as internship, in Salisbury at the infirmary, I think she said, when Kirsty came in with one of her parishioners–she was a curate. The old lady–the parishioner in question–had collapsed and Kirsty had offered to go with the ambulance to the Accident and Emergency department, for moral support.

Siân was the examining physician in A&E and apparently their eyes met over the injured old biddy and they fell in love. I don’t know what happened to the old lady, in a comedy film they’d have started making love across her unconscious body–but this isn’t a comedy film, it’s life–so presumably, they controlled their passion until they were both off duty.

It’s not quite as bizarre as my meeting with Simon, or even more bizarre encounter with Stella on that dark and dreary afternoon in July. I wonder how many other people’s lives are transformed by a thunderstorm?

Come to think of it–after being hit off my bike as a boy–I didn’t go back to that role at all. From then on I began to transition, I hadn’t looked at it like that before. Stella had literally knocked me out of my previous body and life and into this one. I had no complaints–I probably did need to be bump-started like a reluctant car. Stella had also been amazingly generous to her protégé giving me clothes and her time, and the day we went to my mother’s funeral, I was so glad she was there.

Funerals are scary things, and not knowing how my father would react to me appearing in a dress made it even scarier. I was grateful for her support then and ever since. Occasionally she hits below the belt, but then occasionally she isn’t her usual self and becomes a superior and unkind sort of hyper-shrew.

I’m aware that I can also adopt a persona which is unlikely to be described as nice, and that my family occasionally are on the receiving end of it, especially Simon–but then, every so often my wonderful husband transforms into an insensitive jerk who has as much skill in dealing with women as my negative persona has with men.

I wondered what the children were doing and were they missing me? This gave way to the rather dark projection of how would they cope without me were I to be dead or absent for a long time? I suppose they would, Stella and Jenny would have to work hard and Simon would have to pull his finger out–but he can do it when he wants to.

Julie could be a useful second line of support, although she’ll be laid up herself during the next year when she has her surgery–she’s turned out to be a really pretty girl which I am so pleased about. She doesn’t have my fat bum, in fact hers is possibly a little on the small side, but she’s quite thin anyway and she does have a reasonable bust line.

Of the others, Trish is young enough to be very female looking as she grows up, her hips look as if they may be spreading already with the tiny dose of hormones she’s having now. Livvie and Meems are natural girls so hopefully will grow up with none of the possible inadequacies we alternative females might have.

Billie still worries me a little–she’s so quiet much of the time–she rides her bike fairly regularly but she doesn’t seem to be very girlish–she doesn’t read very girly books, even Trish does that and Julie seems to enjoy Mills and Boon now and again, although her fave is Bridget Jones–which I still haven’t read myself.

Billie doesn’t seem to enjoy sewing or knitting either. Now and again, I’ll sit down with whoever wants to do some needlework. Trish and Livvie are there like rockets–they both enjoy sewing and egg each other on, occasionally with disastrous results–Trish came home one day from school in tears, she’d sewn her embroidery to her skirt. Livvie thought it was hilarious. Took me all evening to sort out.

Meems is baby crazy–she just loves looking after babies and playing with her dollies. If Stella or I are looking for assistance with the babies, Meems is the one we want to see come to help. I hope that means she will want to be a children’s nurse or even a paediatrician rather than getting up the duff as soon as she can. I hate to see schoolgirl mothers because it can damage two lives, if not more than two.

Danny–my only boy–he’s a likeable kid with a huge heart and a capacity for loyalty and commitment to a person or cause which borders on dangerous at times. He’s a great team player, being prepared to sacrifice his own goals for the rest of the team–sometimes I wish he could show Trish how to do that.

The traffic seemed to almost vanish and for a few minutes I was alone with my thoughts–I was so relaxed–a nice day out–the prospect of a less relaxing evening but I could do a sewing one–make two of them happy at least and now and again Julie joins us too. Jenny can sew but rarely comes with us to my study as she’s usually looking after Catherine or one of Stella’s little oiks.

Suddenly there was a flurry of brown and I swerved to avoid the deer which had dashed across in front of me, however, I lost control of the car and the next moment I was driving through a hedge and the car seemed to turn over on its side and rolled down an embankment towards a stream. I felt a sharp pain on the back of my head and everything went black.

I came to hanging upside down in my seatbelt, my head was pounding like I had a blacksmith using it for an anvil, the light was fading and I thought I could smell diesel. My car had stopped at the edge of the stream, I could hear the water running but I couldn’t see very much, my eyes seemed to be gummed up and I couldn’t move my arms to help clear them.

There was an after-taste of blood and vomit in my mouth and my tongue was sore–I considered I’d probably bitten it. The irony that my swerving to avoid a deer–a British mammal–might possibly have done for me, wasn’t lost and had I not been in so much pain, I might even have smiled at it.

No one had seen my accident, and now it was dark they wouldn’t for hours. I realised that I might die and I wondered if my musing about the children would come to pass. I felt my consciousness struggling to hold on and the darkness seemed to wash over me...