The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1825 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Despite all the stories of badgers and road-kill, everyone eventually settled down and ate the chicken dinner which David had cooked for us. He’d stuffed it with sausage meat and chestnuts, which I associate with Christmas, though he’d done it to make sure there was enough for everyone–there was.

When Stella commented on the delicious stuffing, David went on to relate how in Victorian times they used to stuff poultry with oysters to eke out the protein–remember that in those days contraception was very difficult compared to today, so large families were the order of the day, many children dying before reaching fifteen years, and from diseases like diphtheria and scarlet fever which are seen as relatively trivial today except perhaps in the third world.

We take so much for granted that we tend to forget how difficult life must have been for our forbears; my contribution was to explain that many Victorian women died in house fires. When asked why, I told them it was because they cooked over open fires or ranges which were heated by fires of wood or coal and their long dresses would catch alight. Flame retardant material is another modern invention so those poor women would have died in agony as their cotton, woollen or linen fabrics would have blazed very quickly.

Trish asked me why period pieces on the television were so popular–loads of girls in school were watching ‘Downton Abbey’, a story based somewhere about World War I.

“I have no idea why it’s so popular, it’s total nonsense, but I suppose it recalls an age when everything was so different to today–so it’s pure escapism.”

“Did people have servants like that?” asked Livvie.

“They had servants, whether they were like those in your television series is another matter.”

“Can we watch it, Mummy?” asked Trish.

“We’ll have to check what time it’s on, on Sunday; remember you have school the next day, so we might have to record it.”

“Katya Bushnell is allowed to watch it,” Trish complained and Livvie nodded.

“An’ so does, Mimi Postlethwaite,” Livvie added, “they’re allowed to stay up to watch it.”

“I don’t care if they’re allowed to paint their noses blue and wear paper bags to school, you’re not doing it if I think it’s on too late. I’ve already said you can record it and watch it another day, so any more grumbles and I won’t let you watch it at all.” That really caused some dissent but my glare cut it short and the mutiny was very short lived.

“They say it’s supposed to be quite good,” commented Stella.

“Well I don’t want to see it,” I proclaimed, “and I think the Guardian said it was all tosh.”

“Posh tosh, eh?” Simon spouted reminding us he was still there amongst the women, Tom and Danny had fled and David was loading the leftovers into the fridge.

“You seem very anti this programme, any reason why?” Stella probed.

“I just don’t fancy it, that’s all. I don’t do nostalgia, especially inaccurate sorts.”

“Nah, that’s the problem with nostalgia,” declared our resident wit.

“What is?” Stella asked her brother.

“No future in it,” he roared with laughter at his own joke.

“Won’t be much of one for you either, if you crack corny jokes like that again,” she threatened.

“Children, please no fighting at the table,” I shouted and the girls began giggling.

“So why don’t you like it? The real reason, if you please,” demanded my sister in law over the giggles from the girls.

“Why don’t you like watching cycle racing?” I replied, the worlds were on last week I didn’t see you watching any of it.”

“It doesn’t interest or appeal to me, that’s why,” she said snottily.

“The plot’s better than Downton Abbey,” I smirked and Simon sniggered which set the girls off again.

“You still haven’t said what’s wrong with it,” Stella pressed on.

“Cathy said she didn’t like it, that good enough?” Simon stepped in before I said something similar but in words that perhaps she’d have understood.

“Is that true?” Stella asked unnecessarily.

“Yes, I think it’s nonsense and I have no wish to watch it.” Personally, I’d rather watch paint dry. Just because things are popular doesn’t make them good, in fact it’s often just a craze or fad that grows out of all perspective, like that Fifty Shades thing. Anyone who’s anyone has read it, some have even read book two–most have got bored by book three. One young woman I heard discussing it with her friend said that she enjoyed book one, even though it was poorly presented in terms of the writing, and she wanted to know what happened to the protagonists so read book two. Half way through, she decided it was so boring and formulaic that she gave up and didn’t even think about book three. Her friend agreed but said she’d finished the second book.

“You’ll be about the only person who doesn’t watch it then,” Stella was now trying to lay some guilt on me.”

“I think that might be regarded as a compliment, shows I’m a goat not a sheep.”

“Yes, an apt description, a daft old goat,” Stella smirked at her own joke.

“Mummy’s not a goat,” said Trish coming in for a drink.

“She is, she doesn’t want to watch Downton Abbey because she’s a self proclaimed culture snob who reads the Guardian.”

Most of this tirade washed over Trish’s head and she looked askance to me. I nodded that Stella’s assessment was reasonably correct.

“Wossa culture snob, Mummy?” she asked.

“Someone with more taste than their accusers,” I said dead pan and Simon snorted while Stella gave me a daggers look.

“Ha,” spat my sister in law and decamped the kitchen, flouncing out into the lounge presumably to complain to her own kids how rude I’d been to her. I accept that I was outspoken, but then I’m Sagittarian–it’s genetic or something, using the truth as a blunt instrument.

Simon sat with a bemused look on his face shaking his head, “She doesn’t like to lose an argument, y’know. In school she once punched some kid’s lights out because he out argued her.”

“What about?”

“I can’t remember–oh yeah, her virginity.”

“I think I might have done the same if he accused me of losing it or being a bit like the school bike.”

“No, you’ve got it the wrong way round, Cathy. He was accusing her of not having lost it when she was describing a session with some boy or other.”

“Wouldn’t that be better?” I couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“Not if you’re trying to portray this image of sophistication, as she was then.”

“She is quite sophisticated,” I suggested because I felt it was true, she’d taught me a lot about being a woman, especially about fashion sense–hers is impeccable.

“Yeah, now she is, she wasn’t then.”

“How old was she, then?”

“Twelve I think,” he said and smirked.

“Twelve? At that age I didn’t know which way was up.”

“Don’t tell me, you thought clitoris was a Greek island?” Simon teased using a Ben Elton joke.

“Don’t tell me you thought that was an original joke?” I fired back. I probably didn’t know what it was back then, but I do now, boy do I know.