The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1970 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

When the North wind doth blow, then we will have snow. We did too, but not as much as Sussex next door. God it was cold. If it wasn’t for Simon, I’d have been cold in bed I reckon. Instead it was like having my own electric blanket. He had a meeting in Portsmouth so could afford the luxury of a lie in. It also helped him deal with his disappointment that Wales had beaten Scotland at Murrayfield, yet he held no animosity towards the Welsh providing they beat England next week. I was sure they’d do their best. Mind you, England were on for a grandslam so would take some beating, or so was Tom’s opinion. All I knew was while they were watching the rugby, I’d be worrying that Danny was well and enjoying himself.

This was getting silly. I sent him to school every day and only really saw him at dinner and breakfast, sometimes not always at those. And here I was almost paranoid because he would be away for four days.

I just thought of all the coach crashes which seemed to happen these days. I remind him to belt in every time and not to sit at the front. I was getting obsessive about it, what would I do if he ever went away to university? And what about the girls–when they went away. I couldn’t bear to think about it.

I rose from bed and after the loo showered and then dried my body and my hair before calling the children to get up for school. They all grumbled when they saw the snow, not that it was deep enough to play with anyway. I supervised the three mousketeers showering and did their hair. In a little while they’d be doing each others like Julie and Sammi do.

I don’t have a lot of confidence when it comes to doing hair, probably because the only times I do it is with the girls. Stella is very good but then she did train as a hairdresser, and Julie is very good too. Phoebe has picked up quite a lot of ideas from working at the salon and between them, they’ve shown Sammi a few things and she seems to pick up on them pretty quickly–she’s very bright, especially with computers, although I suspect you know that.

Trish is the brightest and whizz with anything but common sense and practical skills. Livvie is pretty smart too, but with more common sense than Trish, and Mima is bright and practical–she’ll make a wonderful mother or nurse–her caring skills are way beyond her age.

I wonder what Cate will be. She seems fairly bright and her verbal skills are nearly as good as Puddin’s who still likes to shock with her inappropriate quotations. Stella made the mistake of using the ‘F’ word as she was toddling past. Thankfully it wasn’t the vicar who was here when Pud unleashed a torrent of repetitive obscenities, it was Henry, who wasn’t too impressed. At least she owned up it was her not me who was being quoted. Then when Pud came past saying, ‘Shit, shit, shit,’ they both agreed, “That was Cathy.” Anyway that’s what Jacquie told me as we alternately giggled and blushed.

She seemed to be doing quite well in recovering from her lost relationship and the death of Geraldine. I took her to lay some flowers on her grave–well some Catholics don’t like the idea of cremation–sort of messes up the Second Coming when they all rise from their graves. They obviously don’t consider that fungus and insects and worms all get very fat from the offerings in the wooden box, not to mention the wet and other things in the soil.

Oh well, to each his own. I did half consider being buried in a wood, but it’s prohibitively expensive and burning is fine–providing I’m actually dead first. How maudlin, all from thinking about Jacquie.

I managed to get her on a course at the same college Phoebe attended, though not doing hairdressing and beauty, she was doing straight academic studies for an access course. She had a few things to make up but was ahead in others, but with help from the rest of us, she’d make it and she was home again.

Goodness, I’m so hypocritical–I want them to make lives for themselves and succeed at them–but without leaving home. How stupid can you get? I had to work on this need to be in charge of their lives, however much at arm’s length it seemed to be. My job was to set them up to be independent and self assured, so far all I was doing was making myself neurotic–or more so than usual.

Despite the white stuff, I got everyone where they needed to be. Sammi stayed at home and worked on a program she was writing for the bank. Simon went off to his meeting at the Portsmouth branch–this was the one Sammi had started at when she was molested by the manager. Apparently he didn’t learn and Simon went off to the disciplinary having packed his black cap. The regional manager would be the prosecutor, the manager would have his own defence, and Simon would be the judge–or discharging officer. He didn’t normally deal with such things but he wanted it known that he had personally got involved to demonstrate that High St Bank plc took great care in maintaining its standards and policies and they stated that any form of sexual harassment would be dealt with severely and if serious would be reported to the police.

When Sammi found out what was happening, she went quite pale. In the few months she’d spent living as a female she’d learnt a great deal more than she’d known when she worked at the local branch and her naíveté when she was being inappropriately touched made her feel quite ill. The modelling course she’d had, the little she’d had of it, she was ill if you recall, taught her a lot about how some people like to touch when talking to you, sometimes very intimately and she didn’t like it one bit.

The girls had asked David if they could have cottage pie for dinner. It wasn’t what we’d originally set but Simon was in full agreement. I think this must hanker back to when he was at school–sort of comfort blanket stuff. But I wasn’t going to think too much about it, I had enough idiosyncrasies of my own to sort out–he could do his own, unless it interfered with some of mine.

David was quite happy to make cottage pie and we had half a ton of minced beef in the freezer, and a sack of potatoes–yeah, my kitchen is like a busy restaurant in terms of the consumption of quantity and since David has been running it, he organises it like one in ordering from wholesalers and butchers; only top up stuff comes from supermarkets.

A story from the Guardian comes to mind with photos of a pine marten attacking a footballer in Switzerland–obviously no squirrels about.