The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1833 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

As the week wore on, there was no news of the little girl in Mid-Wales and it began to look very bad. Someone was taken into custody and finally charged with her murder. I felt so sad about it, yet still they hadn’t found her body. When Simon offered to spend five minutes with the suspect to find out where he’d dumped her body, I think most of us felt the same. However, it would have brought him down to almost the same level as the suspect.

Although we didn’t have any children of quite the same age as her, we had older and younger ones and we felt as raw as anyone about it. Whether the suspect is actually guilty has yet to be established in court, but whoever took the child has destroyed several lives including his own.

It left me feeling a bit down, partly because I couldn’t help, and partly because I couldn’t understand what motivates someone to do such a thing. On the Saturday, the sun shone and I wanted to do something outside, even something like gardening was better than being inside and by lunchtime the sun felt quite warm.

Danny had been off to play football and Simon had gone to watch–he does when he can. Tom had supervised the three older girls and me in the garden, and we swept up the few leaves which had started to fall and dumped a sackful of them in the compost.

We then discovered a hedgehog hiding in the back of the compost heap and I got one of the girls to bring out the tin of cat food, and I scooped a couple of spoonfuls down near the animal. Then we retired to a safe distance and not more than ten minutes later, it emerged and scoffed the food before hiding back in its hole under the rotting vegetation.

Tom told us that one year he’d had grass snakes lay eggs in his compost heap, warmed by the fermentation that goes on in it, started by the pile of manure he shoves on it. In the winter you can sometimes see it steaming, which means it’s hot enough to kill any weed seeds in it so that when it’s spread and dug into the garden it’s not propagating pest plants. Weeds are just plants in the wrong place.

We harvested some potatoes as well. They were smaller than usual and Tom was disappointed that they hadn’t done better, the rain came at the wrong time and some earlier ones he’d dug were going rotten.

Meems went to get something from the house and Bramble got out, so we had fifteen minutes of mad scrambles and mayhem trying to get her back into the house. She hasn’t finished her jabs yet, so she should be indoors still. Trish laid into Meems and I reminded her that we all make mistakes. She apologised to her sister and peace was restored.

The girls asked if we could do a bike ride after lunch. I knew that Tom wanted Simon to help him with something in the orchard–lopping some branches–I think, so I agreed. David now doing the meal planning and shopping relieved me of that chore and we’d got to the stage when he showed me what he planned for the week and unless I disagreed, that’s what we had. However, I lived in fear of him moving on and me having to do it all again. I guess I’m a failure as a housewife.

Whenever I mentioned this to him, he’d reassure me that he hadn’t felt as wanted or as supported in any previous job he’d had and although it wasn’t as demanding as working in a restaurant, he loved being with us as we’d become his family and that seemed to be important for him.

He still had a couple of days a week off, but even then, tended to eat with us and I basically just heated up what he’d left us from the day before or I made do with things like jacket potatoes. The kids love them, or we’d get in pizzas or fish and chips. It seems the less nourishment there is in the food, the more the kids love it.

For a change, we were having soup and fresh made bread–we can get through two loaves at a sitting if everyone is home, and a very large pot of soup. David had made some cream of watercress, which I love so I had to be careful that I didn’t eat too much before we went cycling.

Danny was torn between helping his dad play with a chainsaw in the orchard and coming out with us on the bikes. In the end the bikes won out, so with him leading and me bringing up the rear, we set off along the bike path and I hoped the girls would try to put some effort into it.

Bike rides seem to act as catalysts in my life. If you remember, my life was kick-started by Stella while I was riding a bike and several other things of a less pleasant nature have also happened while on a bike, including my own near death experience and the death of poor old Billie, whom I still miss and never a day goes by without me thinking of her. That got me thinking about the poor little girl in Machynlleth again, as she was out with her bicycle when she was abducted.

This time we seemed to be going on without any unexpected things happening, Danny was leading the girls and I was dawdling along behind them which is actually harder than riding with a group which is going fast. The problem with unexpected things is just that, you aren’t expecting them.

We’d been accompanied by a light aircraft buzzing about like a giant mosquito–not the second world war fighter-bomber, but the blood sucking insect. However, what with the noise of traffic and especially the odd motorbike zooming past, and sounding like they were about to enter into reverse thrust, the noise of the plane hadn’t disturbed me that much.

Sometimes I did wonder if I’d like to fly, but they damage the environment and it’s a very expensive as well as selfish hobby, and I didn’t have time to fly my bikes let alone a small tail dragger, as someone my dad knew used to call light aircraft.

I suppose I noticed a change in the whine of the ‘mosquito’ and for some reason looked up. Then the engine sounded like it was stalling. In itself, that wasn’t too disturbing, as they teach pilots how to cope with an engine stall, so it could have been a training flight. The engine coughed back into life so I assumed that’s what it was until it happened again and when I looked up I thought I could see smoke.

I called the children to stop and dismounted feeling for my mobile phone which was in the back pocket of my shirt, under the gilet I was wearing. I was calling the emergency services as the plane started to smoke like mad and flames were visible. This was going to end badly.

It seemed to swoop low and then flipped upside down and smacked into the ground with an almighty wallop followed by an explosion with bits of debris being blasted all over the place including towards us. Some flaming plastic just missed Meems who turned her bike round and rode it behind me.

I called the children together, Danny yelling, “Aren’t we going to help him?”

“No, I suspect he’s beyond anything we could do, and it’s too dangerous to go near.” I’d given the police the approximate location and minutes later police cars, fire engines and an ambulance were on their way.

The second police car to arrive asked if it were us who’d called and I nodded. I told him what we’d seen and he nodded, then told us to go home, something I was glad to do. We’d just witnessed someone’s death and we all felt rather sombre as we processed home.

Simon had heard the bang and seen the smoke wondering what had happened but hadn’t realised we were so close. He gave each of us a sweaty hug–he’d worked hard with Tom sawing wood for the fire and shifting it into the shed to dry. I don’t know about the girls and Danny, but I felt really good to have his arms around me even if he did smell less than his usual elegant self.