The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1774 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“I missed you, babes,” Simon offered along with a hug and a kiss.

“I missed you too,” I replied–it was mostly true, though I’d had such an unusual night, I perhaps didn’t miss him as much as I might have done–but as long as he doesn’t find out, it won’t matter.

Catherine came out to greet me using a combination of toddling and crawling when she couldn’t walk as long as she liked. When I picked her up she screeched in my ear and nearly deafened me. However, she seemed pleased to see me as well.

David had baked a cake in honour of our return and it wasn’t long before we were sampling it with a cuppa. This time it was a Victoria sponge with a jam and cream filling and drenched in icing sugar. It was gorgeous and I could quite easily have eaten another slice but I remembered the old adage–what goes past the lips ends up on the hips–and mine were big enough as they were; or I thought so. Simon might feel differently. As if reading my mind he stroked my bottom as he went past an act which drives me nuts unless we’re getting romantic–okay, it’s not the Latino bottom pinching, which I’d reward with a slap of force ten magnitude a la Richter, but I still find it objectifies me–I know, grow up and be satisfied someone likes my bum enough to want to touch it.

After the excitement of Mary’s house, I went off to do some work on the survey taking tiny wee with me and an assortment of her toys. To my surprise Trish followed and sat playing with her sister until she made the mistake of loaning her a Barbie to play with–she somehow managed to bite the head off it.

Trish exclaiming, “You stupid child,” drew my attention to the would-be cannibal and I almost leapt across the room which frightened both of them. In managing to remove a rather soggy and dilapidated lump of plastic, I upset both of them by telling Trish to shut up and ramming my fingers into little ‘un’s mouth and hooking out the unfortunate doll’s bonce.

I did manage to calm them down by good old bribery and corruption, and the promise to get Trish a new doll tomorrow–she never plays with them anyway, but I suppose her property had been vandalised by Attila the Hun’s baby sister and she sought redress.

I went back to my survey and the beginnings of my dissertation. It was so boring that I actually went into a reverie where I was examining my life since settling down to play housewife and mother. It seemed that I spent half my time teaching or running the house and family and half the time avoiding people who had this urge to try to kill me, either deliberately or otherwise.

If they weren’t trying to knock me off my bike, they were shooting at me or stabbing me. If it wasn’t people then bugs did a similar job only with their nefarious toxins or effects upon vital bits of me, such as, lungs.

Then there was the weird stuff, that strange entity who pops up every so often and tries to bargain with me. It’s obviously all in my head–so what that must be full of, goodness only knows–a hundred and one delusions, perhaps?

I suspect I could blame that on my parents–the apparent appearance of an Old Testament goddess–the way they encouraged Bible study when I was a kid. On a Sunday I had to go to church, then Sunday school–and we didn’t do face painting or making things out of used Blue Peter presenters, no sirree, we did Bible study and the old dragon who took us made sure we feared god. It took me years to get past that and see it for what it was–total nonsense.

If god existed, and we know he doesn’t, Nietzsche having killed him some years earlier, before going off his own rocker. The áœbermensch has influenced many greater minds than mine, but it still remains a powerful idea although its creator died a hundred years ago. I’d only dabbled in his philosophy as a school kid, and meant to read it more fully–like a thousand other books on all sorts of subjects–instead of which I wasted my time reading corny thrillers or whodunits. But I could cope with Brunetti stalking the canals and piazzas of Venice in the witty caricatures created by the American writer, Donna Leon. I find it delicious that the only place you can’t buy them is Italy because they lampoon much of the bureaucracy and corruption that exists there.

I was disturbed from my brown study by Trish tapping me on the arm, “Mummy,” she almost shouted at me. Had I a weaker constitution, I suspect I’d have had an attack of the vapours, or failing that, a coronary.

“Yes, darling,” I called while drifting down from the ceiling.

“Look,” she giggled thrusting something so close to my face that I couldn’t see what it was. On pushing her arm a foot or so away, I could see why she was laughing, she’d stuck a ping pong ball on top of the decapitated doll and painted on a more vacuous expression than the original had possessed.

“What’s it stuck on with?” I enquired of the doll with acute hydrocephalus.

“Blutack,” she smiled.

“Well, keep it away from Catherine won’t you?”

“Mummy” she sighed in exasperation, “d’you think I’m stupid enough to let her near it again?”

I couldn’t speak for wanting to laugh because as she held the damaged doll in her hand which was now down below her hip, I saw a small head heading for her–like a baby white shark scenting blood and homing in for the kill.

Trish spotted the danger a nanosecond before the shark could grab the decapitated plastic bimbo, and she lifted it high above her with an air of triumph–which was transitory in its victory–as the painted ball lost contact with the rest of the doll and bounced away much to the delight of her baby sister who stood and giggled like an hysteric on nitrous oxide.

This time I was able to recover the makeshift noggin and return it to its rightful owner before ‘What Katy did,’ became choked on a Barbie-crew.