Battle of Britain commemoration.. (aka Bike) Part 1940 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

(Photo of Hawker Hurricane courtesy of wikipedia.)

The children all have accounts with the bank, mostly savings accounts but also a current account. To make sure they can’t abuse this or lose the money to fraud, there is only ever a couple of hundred kept in these accounts–so they can buy presents or the odd thing for themselves without needing to ask permission. They would usually withdraw money from the bank or hole in the wall ATMs, and to keep it safe they can’t withdraw more than fifty pounds at any one transaction or in any one period of twenty four hours. That’s the theory, the practice has never been tested–perhaps I should add–so far.

I sent Si a text asking if Danny’s account has had any unusual activity in recent days. I got a phone call back. “What’s he spent a hundred and seventy five pounds on?”

“What d’you mean?”

“A fortnight ago he had two hundred, he’s now down to twenty five pounds–what’s he spent it on?”

“I have no idea–we need to talk about this when you get home.”

“Okay, I’ll get a statement printed off.”

“Thanks, darling, I’ll see you later.”

I was interrupted by Trish, “Have you seen this?” she called.

“Seen what, sweetheart?”

“Your friend Cav could win the Tour of Qatar.”

“Oh, could he?” I hadn’t looked at a cycling website for a couple of weeks, which won’t be the case when the TdF starts. She called me to come and look and sure enough, he was in with a shout, a good shout, at winning the whole race. While sprinters don’t usually win stage races, which this is, Tom Boonen has won this race before and would probably have won it again had he been racing. So his loss is possibly Cav’s gain.

I took them to school and avoided the headmistress who I fear is always trying to inveigle me into some scheme or other to help the school. Recently, I’ve managed to avoid anything. I did try to divert attention for the governor’s post to Tom, but he was ill and declined it. So far she hasn’t come back after me–perhaps I should have taken the UN job, not the conservation advisor but the Secretary General’s one, it would easier dealing with the middle east crisis than Sister Maria.

Back home, I turned policewoman and searched Danny’s room for any new items which could have cost nearly two hundred pounds–there were none that I could see. So where had the money gone?

I tried to think what would a youngster spend it on–I didn’t think it was booze or fags, or even drugs–I’m sure I’d have noticed any of those–but seriously, would I? I began to doubt myself and worry–were we failing him?

What else–football kit or gadgets–he does like his gadgets. Then he’s got himself a girlfriend. I know this is a reality because he’s begun buying himself deodorant spray and using far too much. Trish commented that she was glad he didn’t come to school with her because she’d die from the fumes of his antiperspirant spray before they got to school. To Danny, Lynx is the height of sophistication like Old Spice and Brut used to be to earlier generations of young men. I suppose I could buy him some decent stuff for his birthday, I did suggest he used less of it; trying to explain that the object was to reduce sweating and subsequent odour not fumigate his armpits. It didn’t seem to make much difference, he still smelt overpoweringly unnatural.

While I don’t like body odour on me or anyone else, I do enjoy smelling some of Simon’s body scent and you may recall I used to enjoy smelling his shirt in the days before we lived to together. It made me feel good and was a combination of his toiletries and a bit of his body smell–but in combinations which complemented each other. I’ve heard stories of men sniffing women’s panties and getting turned on, the thought of sniffing Si’s underpants would do anything but excite me as i usually don a biological protection suit to collect them from the bedroom floor or shove them in the washing machine.

Not having the mk1 version of female genitalia, I doubt my panties would interest Si in any case, although the kitten got tangled up in a pair while I was doing the washing last week–she ran round the house wearing them over her head with me in hot, giggling pursuit. Eventually they went in the machine–the knickers only, not the kitten.

I remember seeing a picture on the internet of a vending machine in Japan which apparently sold hermetically sealed, soiled, women’s panties. I always knew eating whale meat was bad for you–seems I was right. Over here we are having a problem with manufacturers seemingly unwittingly adding horse meat or products derived from equines to processed meat products, the latest is beef lasagne. I’m not sure what the fuss is all about, I’ve been taking Premarin for years–or am I just taking the piss?

As I emerged from Danny’s room, I bumped into Stella. “You seemed to be in there a long time,” she observed.

“Just giving it a quick tidy, you know what boys are like?”

“Yeah, noisy and smelly.”

“No, I meant how casual they can be. I have to check to make sure he hasn’t hung up his dirty stuff and put the clean in the laundry basket.”

“If he puts anything in the laundry basket he’s better than Si, as I recall from the days in the cottage. When we moved from there, they found a pair of underpants and some socks under his bed which I reckon had been there for at least a couple of years.”

“Well he hasn’t done that here so far–to my knowledge.”

“No, because he’s got you to do it for him, although I know you complain about it every so often, so I don’t suppose he’s got the message yet. I reckon it would be easier to train Kiki than Simon.”

“I don’t want Kiki putting his pants in the laundry basket–yuck–they’re occasionally a bit dam...”

“Too much information, Cathy, far too much,” she rushed off down the stairs with Fiona.

I had an image of Kiki picking up Simon’s pants and popping them in the laundry basket–or of him training her to do it. I also had one of her refusing to go near them on the grounds of health and safety. That one was funnier especially when it included his socks as well.

Poor Simon, we do lead him a song and dance on occasion–though sometimes he richly deserves it. Then I remembered the day Stella put his pants in the freezer–he was not amused, especially when he went commando and we teased him. I chuckled out loud and Stella called up the stairs that I sounded like I was crazy, laughing to myself. I couldn’t tell her why, she might do it again and then the girls or Danny might copycat it–that would lead to World War 3 and life is difficult enough already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTs9m3qiP4w