The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1203 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I slept poorly that night so when I had four or five visitors round my bed the next morning singing Happy Birthday, I wasn’t as pleased as I might have been. However, it’s difficult to be grumpy when they’re all shoving cards under your nose and telling you that you’re the bestest mummy in the world.

I dragged myself to a sitting position and opened my eyes. It was white outside from the way the light was coming in through the window. I looked at the clock, it was seven. I groaned–I think I might hide on Christmas eve/morning.

I had to open the cards, Danny and Julie had bought theirs, the others had made their own on the computer, with virtually every known picture of dormice from the internet being used. Clever-dick Trish had managed to get into my own stash of photos on the internet via the university site and used several of those for her picture.

“How did you get into my pictures?” I asked her.

“When the password was dormouse, it wasn’t very hard, Mummy.”

I groaned again.

“Can we give you our presents now, Mummy?” asked Billie.

“Shall we wait until we’ve had breakfast?” Ever the grownup, I led them downstairs where sleeping beauty was just coming to in his chair. I thought I’d let him go up and shower first before I did anything.

They gobbled down their food, and while I was still only half way through mine they all dashed off and came rushing back with various sized packages. Trish gave me a new hairbrush and handbag mirror; Meems gave me a pot plant which was almost as big as her–an orchid–it was beautiful. it had lilac coloured flowers with yellow and white centres–Billie gave me some new cycling gloves with fingers in for the colder weather; Danny gave me a balaclava for cycling or walking in cold weather; Julie got me a new hair drier and Livvie staggered up with a large box inside which were some new tyres for my road bike. How they’d managed to keep things hidden from me didn’t become clear until Stella came smirking down and gave me a bottle of perfume and a card.

Unbeknownst to me Simon had been up and showered and shaved, and although he was still hung-over, he presented me with an academic diary with tonight showing a booking for half past seven for dinner at a very nice restaurant.

I heard something pulling into our drive and saw Gareth’s Land-Rover come into view. I assumed he’d come to see Stella so didn’t pay any more attention to him, deciding I’d better feed the baby and get her dressed, then I could go and dress myself after showering.

He came in and gave me a card and a very nice ball pen and pencil set. I fed baby C and bathed her, then went up stairs to shower. The others were all talking and there were lots of giggles and hushes going on.

I hoped they weren’t going to produce a birthday cake and embarrass me again with their off key singing. I dried my hair and brushed it back into a ponytail then dressed in jeans and shirt and a jumper on top of it in case we went out in the snow.

Downstairs, after asking Gareth, who was still there if anyone had offered him a drink, I put the kettle on and the whispers were still doing the rounds.

“Okay, what’s going on?” I demanded and silence fell.

Simon stood up and asked the assembled throng, “Shall we tell her?”

“Tell me what?” I asked looking at him with great suspicion.

“Close your eyes,” he said and took my hand, “Now keep them closed until I tell you to open them.”

He led me stumbling to the front door, someone rushed past us whom I suspect was Trish–it’s always Trish. I heard the front door open and I shivered in the cold air and could feel the snow crunching underfoot. I was so tempted to open my eyes but I maintained wifely obedience and kept my peepers shut.

“Okay, you can open them now,” I did so and saw Henry’s Audi pull into the drive. “Trust him to spoil it,” muttered Simon.

Then I looked behind Gareth’s Land Rover and there on the back of a trailer was a large four wheel drive with a big ribbon tied round it and Happy Birthday on a large piece of card hung from the door.

“You managed to get it here then?” said Henry loudly.

“Looks like it,” Simon said back.

“I don’t understand,” I said feeling rather bemused.

“You wanted a Porsche, you gotta Porsche.”

“I was joking, Simon.”

“Now you bloody tell me”.

“Jim’s car was lovely, but I’m quite content with my little Mercedes.”

“Ah,” said Simon.

“What’s happened to it now?”

“Nothing, except I traded it in against this one.”

“How many gallons does that do to the mile?”

“Actually, it’s better than you think, and of course, depends upon how you drive it.”

“I didn’t want anything that big.”

“It’s the only Porsche that will carry the kids to school, the 911, or 997 as it really is now is theoretically a four seater but only with two toddlers in the back. This thing will carry five or six adults and it’s yours.” He held out a set of keys.

“Take it, Cathy, it’s about time he spent his bonus on you.” Henry came up and hugged me, “Happy Birthday,” he handed me a card. Inside was a credit card type fuel card. “This might help your gas guzzling.”

“How am I supposed to have credibility in ecology circles when they find out I drive a gas guzzler with an engine the same size as forty ton truck.”

“But you said you wanted a Porsche,” Simon looked and sounded exasperated.

“I was joking, I loved driving Jim’s Boxer was it?”

“Boxster,” corrected Simon. “You said it several times, you wanted a Porsche.”

“One like Jim had.”

“How are you going to take the girls to school?”

“That,” I pointed at the Mondeo.

“Why not that?” Si pointed at the shiny new car on the back of Gareth’s trailer.

“I just told you–I’d lose all credibility with my ecological colleagues.”

“I’d have thought a four wheel drive would be useful for a fieldworker.”

“What’s wrong with a Land Rover?”

“Okay, I’ll swap it for a Range Rover.”

“No–one like Gareth’s or Daddy’s.”

“They’re not Porsche’s, that’s what.”

“Duh, I can see that.”

“Look take it for a test drive and see what you think.”

“In all this snow?” I challenged.

“Cathy, it’s a four b’ four, it’s designed for this sort of thing.”

“It’s a Chelsea tractor, not a real four wheel drive, it’s for suits or WAGs to drive.”

“Yeah and banker’s wives. Now get your coat on, you’re taking it for a test drive.”

“But it uses so much fuel?”

“Dad just gave you a fuel card–he pays for the fuel as long as you have the car.”

“What? What happens if we should happen to drive to Scotland tomorrow in it.”

“He’ll pay for the juice. If you go to bloody Istanbul in it, he’ll cop for the diesel.”

“Oh it’s diesel, is it?”

“Yes, what difference does that make?”

“They’re more efficient aren’t they?”

“At polluting people’s lungs, yes–oh and yes, diesels are more efficient than petrol engines.”

“Can we come for a ride, Mummy?” asked Trish, dancing round with Livvie and Billie.

“Later, darling.”

“Simon, get your arse in gear, we need to go and look at this office block,” Henry said.

“Cathy could take me in her new car, I’ll take my keys with me I’ll bring the Jag back afterwards.”

I had a feeling he’d be disappointed, as to my reckoning, it sounded very much as if his car was under thousands of tons of masonry and concrete, plus all the water from the hoses.

While I put on a coat and gloves and boots, they got the car off the trailer. I got into it with trepidation but apart from feeling like I was sitting in a lorry looking down on the world, it drove like a dream. Simon told me it would do sixty miles an hour in under eight seconds–obviously not in snow, but I suspect that’s fast enough for me, he also told me it has a 3.6L V6 engine, whatever that means he’d have liked the next one up, which had a 4.8L engine but they couldn’t get one in time. I told him this would be fine, realising the pig had outmanoeuvred me again. Looks like I was stuck with an SUV having spent most of my recent years complaining about them.