The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2534 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad

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By late morning the sun had come up and it was a relatively nice day, they did have a kick around and I waited until after lunch for a bike ride which also included the three soccer hooligans. We did about ten miles which was enough for Livvie and the object was to encourage her not put her off.

Trish and Danni constantly raced each other, which almost always, Danielle won being older and stronger. Trish then goaded me to race Danni and beat her, I explained I was staying with Livvie who was feeling the discomfort of very occasional riding. However, when Danni challenged me and Livvie told me to show him, how it’s done, I was sorely tempted.

About two miles from home I agreed and asTrish and Livvie knew their way back, we were to race home. The two younger girls counted us down an Danni jumped the gun, little sod. I dropped down through the gears and as I built up speed, I clicked back up them. I was now doing twenty miles an hour—okay, only basic racing speed, but it was faster than Danni and I was gaining on her by the second.

By about a mile from home I drew level and accelerated. She gamely tried to stay on my wheel but my superior size and technique soon lost her and I was home several minutes before her. As soon as she was home I set off to watch the two youngsters back. They were trundling along chatting like they were on an afternoon stroll.

“Did you beat her, Mummy?” asked Trish.

“Shall we say I didn’t come second.”

“You didn’t come second,” they immediately echoed back at me. I was half expecting it, so it didn’t have quite the novelty it might have once had.

“You won then?”

“Only just,” I admitted.

“Danni cheated.”

“Yeah, she had an unfair advantage.”

“She gave me a rabbit to chase.” I smirked.

“Did she—wassat mean, Mummy?”

“Just an expression, but she had the advantage of a few yards lead, I had the advantage of surprise and she gave me something to chase.”

“You had the advantage of surprise and her as a target, and you’re bigger and stronger...plus a fanatical devotion to the pope.” Trish read this off as we got out of the car.

“Amongst our advantages, are surprise...” claimed Livvie. Now I know what they were watching on telly last night, Monty Python’s flying circus has a new audience who were too young to have seen it except as historical repeats or on Simon’s DVD collection.

“My hovercraft is full of eels,” they both shrieked and shot off leaving me to sprint to catch them.

I was tempted to say, “Welease Woderwick,” but Meems would have taken a dim view of it. I didn’t think she’d be able sit still long enough to watch much of it, but just in case she did, Besides, The Life of Brian, was possibly no longer an empty gesture which some saw as allegorical and others condemned without ever seeing it. Nothing new there, but a reported suicide of a young person in America because he was transgender was very sad. His parents were conventional evangelicals and effectively refused him mainstream treatment, using instead counsellors who were as biased as his parents. He posted a suicide note on facebook.

I don’t know what his parents must be feeling but it can’t be good. In some ways they only have themselves to blame choosing their needs over his. Not a good place to be. At the same time I suspect if he’d waited a little longer he could have found a way to out manoeuvre them—buying oestrogen and blockers on line and so on. It’s still very sad and like most suicides could have been avoided.

The girls and I arrived at home and Danni was wiping down her bike, which Stella had originally bought but gave up as a means of exercise. I insisted the other two wipe down their own bikes and we secured them in the bike store. I looked at the part made wheel on the jig and decided I needed to find some time to finish it.

While we’d been out we had someone pass us going the opposite way on a full race bike with Zipp carbon wheels amongst carbon fibre everything. At my level of performance, although I could afford a top of the range bike, I couldn’t justify one and probably never would—at thirty one, I was probably past my best and although people like Beryl Burton were still setting records, she had slightly less family commitments or work calls upon her time. I think I had to accept I was getting older.

Danni was buzzing and suggested she’d like to win the TdF after captaining England ladies to winning the world cup and making a fortune. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with ambition, even unlikely ones—but then tell that to the Wright brothers.

David produced a curry for dinner, I had a tuna jacket or was it a pair of trousers? I agreed Cindy could visit at the weekend but only if everyone’s homework was completed first. Danni asked if we were going to do any sewing. “Why, do you want to?”

“I know Cindy does, she asked me to ask you.”

“What about you though?”

“Yeah, why not? It was fun last time—yeah, I wanna do some. Can I make something else?”

“What would you like to make?”

“I dunno, a dress maybe?”

“For that we’d have to get some material and a pattern.”

“We could get them on the way home from school, one night.”

“It could take some time to find a pattern you like that I think you could make plus suitable material. It could take a whole morning or afternoon.”

“What about on line?”

“If you’ve finished your homework, by all means look, but we’re looking for easy patterns, you’re not Vivienne Westwood or Stella McCartney.”

“I thought they just designed things, Mummy.”

“They have to know how to make them as well and in training as dress designers, they’d have had to make up their own designs in college.”

“I hadn’t thought of that, I s’pose they woulda done.”

“Darling, their training would involve all sorts of things like getting the design balanced and choosing the right sort of fabrics to make it in, while hopefully encouraging some development of their own creative style.”

“I think I’ll stick to footie, Mummy, it sounds easier.”

“Might be a good idea, we could still have a look for a pattern and material on Saturday. If you’ve finished your homework.”

“I willa done, Mummy, I willa done.”