The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2853 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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Making lunch followed on from the ironing, normally this would have irked me but my new understanding of my mother gave me a good feeling and David and Amanda were entitled to have the odd day off.

I decided to do bacon and eggs a meal we rarely eat partly because we need the equivalent of three pigs and the entire output of a poultry farm. Only joking, two dozen eggs is enough. I did mushrooms, tomatoes and loads of toast—well Trish did the toast which Livvie buttered. Daddy wasn’t terribly impressed having expected a roast dinner but I resisted the temptation to invite him to cook it next time. I had planned one for our evening meal but wondered if I would do something different just to annoy him. Silly old fool just turns up eats and criticises when he doesn’t get his own way. However, criticising him or playing silly buggers wasn’t going to resolve things and improve his appreciation.

“Sorry it’s not a roast dinner but I’ve just done three hours of ironing, anyone who’d like to take over the ironing to give me time to make a nice meal would be most appreciated.” There were no takers funnily enough or complaints. Simon was in heaven he loves bacon and eggs, so he munched through his and ate a pile of toast afterwards. Trish had to go and make some more.

“Hmm,” said Trish as we cleared up, “Daddy seems to think toast grows on trees.”

“Not quite, he knows where it comes from he’s seen me making it. He’s just never done it himself that I can remember.”

She thought that was funny and then went on about the time he had to get her out of bed to show him how the washing machine worked. That was the day he destroyed my grandmother’s damask table cloth. All he had to do was pour white wine over the stain of the red one and it would have washed it out then all he had to do was rinse it or leave it to soak and I’d have washed it when I got home. Being a twit, he didn’t do either.

I played snakes and ladders with the younger girls then we had a game of dingbats. I’m sure Trish has memorised all the answers because she has the answer before I finish reading the clue. She won by miles.

Mid afternoon we had a text from Danielle to say she’d be ready in an hour. I asked Simon to go and get her. He was just settling down for a snooze so wasn’t best pleased, but he did go with Trish and Livvie going along for the ride in his F type. As soon as I mentioned I could go but he’d have cook dinner, he jumped up went for a wee and then set off with his two navigators.

Hannah jumped at my invitation to help me make dinner, she grumbled that her old mother didn’t cook very much and that they lived off take-aways or junk food that only needed to be warmed in a microwave.

“You can cook decent food in a microwave too, you know.”

“Like what?” she replied so cynically I almost wanted to cut her in half and count the rings to see if she was as young as she said she was.

“Like jacket potatoes, or scrambled eggs, or greenstuff. It’s mostly about using your imagination.”

“I know one thing you couldn’t cook in it,” she danced around as she spoke.

“What’s that?”

“Ice cream,” she said and danced around some more. There’s always one isn’t there?

We part cooked the roast potatoes in the microwave and Hannah, who was in charge of that part of the menu, did really well zapping them and then placing them on a board as I insisted on doing anything with hot fat—it’s like napalm.

We had a whole shoulder of pork which I’d put in the Aga while I was actually ironing and as Daddy would expect apple sauce I got Hannah to peel a couple of Bramley apples and to chop them after removing the core. She didn’t understand the difference between cookers and eaters or dessert apples so I let her taste a bit of Bramley. She now knew the difference.

I boiled up the apple with some sugar and cinnamon and left it to cool. Then I did potatoes for boiling, some curly kale, some mushrooms, some carrots and some whole green beans. Everyone should find something they liked in that lot.

We basted the meat, pouring some fat over it before putting it back in the oven. She’d never done that before either. I suspect we’ve got a whole generation of children, not just girls, who’ve never watched or helped their mothers or fathers cook a meal. Some don’t even appear to know where meat comes from or vegetables. Our lot do, they get called upon to help Daddy grow it and then harvest it. Danielle is his favourite, she loves to help him something I’m pleased she retained from her boyhood only now she wears gloves for everything in case she dirties her hands or breaks a nail. Sometimes she is so girly I wonder if I brought the right kid home from the hospital. The way she took to being a fulltime girl was like a duck to water so why was I so surprised by her? Why did I think she was only playing at it? So did Julie who is much closer to her age than I am, yet Trish had no doubts whatsoever. Mind you Trish thinks being a girl is such fun everyone should have a try.

“What time will this be ready, Mummy?” asked Hannah as we stopped for a tea break and I invited Julie and Phoebe to come and have some.

“I’m not hurrying it so Daddy and the girls can get back with Danielle while it’s still hot.”

“Yeah, I ’spect she’ll be a bit peckish after all that runnin’ around,” said Julie pouring the teas. “Never thought she’d be a such a girly girl though, always thought soccer players were tomboys or lezzies.”

I gave her a scornful look and then indicated Hannah behind her. She blushed and mimed ‘sorry’.

“It’s rather nice that she enjoys being a girl so much,” was my comment in reply.

“She seems to, just hope the other shoe don’t fall.”

“Drop,” I corrected, “the expression is waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“Whatever—but if it does ‘drop’ she is gonna be so screwed.”

“Why’s that?” asked Phoebe.

“She ’ad a couple of dangly bits at the beginning, until that nutter decided to play Jack the Ripper on her.”

“I thought Jack the Ripper slashed women not boys.”

“I meant it was messy like one of them Whitechapel murders.”

“That is the Jack the Ripper stuff.”

“Didn’t he dissect them poor women?” Julie sought to confirm.

“Yes, pretty much. They still don’t know who it was except they started and stopped very suddenly. The latest theory I heard was that they were done to cover up one of the murders by creating this archetypal fiend who preyed on young women prostitutes. It’s very sad whatever reason he thought he had to go and kill all those poor women.”

“I don’t get why it’s so popular now, it was over a hundred years ago, f’ Pete’s sake. Even before Gramps was born.”

“Whit wis?” said the be-whiskered one.

“Jack the Ripper, Pheebs here, wondered if you knew him, like?”

“Whit? That wis a hundred yeers ago if not langer? Why wid I ken him?”

“It was a joke, Gramps,” said Julie blushing

“Weel I thocht it wis in very puir taste,” he huffed and took his tea down to his study.

“Why d’you involve me?” complained Phoebes and Julie and she went off arguing while Hannah rolled her eyes and smirked while I turned up the oven to make some the pork skin turn to crackling—a real tooth breaker.