The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2175 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Danni’s tutor showed up as I was taking the girls to school–she was early, I hoped Danni was ready for her–oh well, Jacquie and Stella are there. After dropping off the girls I went straight home, was there something I wasn’t aware of going on?

Apparently not, Danni should have told me yesterday they were starting early as she had to go somewhere at lunchtime, so would be leaving early. They were hard at it from half past eight. At eleven the tutor got ready to leave and we spoke for a couple of minutes, she was pleased with Danni’s progress in most subjects and she showed me some of her work–it was better than what had happened in school, which might have been just having one to one tuition or better teaching, or was perhaps related to the fact that in living as a girl meant she wasn’t as resistant to authority and complied a little more–that’s very stereotyped I know, but it could be valid.

It wasn’t quite lunchtime so I told her to get changed and we’d have a quick bike ride before we ate. She didn’t wait to argue she rushed upstairs and was down again in her cycling stuff before I was.

We did a quick ten miler and were back in under the hour, given the wind and a couple of attempts to rain, I thought we did quite well. An even quicker shower followed and we arrived at the lunch table just as David was serving it.

“I’m thinking we need to have your work graded by an outsider, so I’m thinking of asking Sister Maria if you sit their exams, then we’ll have some sort of comparison to analyse.”

“You’re joking, I have no idea what they study.”

“I do and so does your tutor, it’s based upon the same curriculum as used by the convent.”

“What about religion?”

“Ah yes, that is a little problem, so we’ve ignored it.”

“Can you do that?”

“Yes, I decide what you learn about as I pay the tutor.”

“And that’s the same as the girl’s?”

“Yes, so if ever you change your mind, you’d fit in there quite quickly.”

“I dunno, Mummy, if this tutor’s as good as you think, it might pay me to continue, I mean what if I give up being a girl tomorrow?”

“If you did I’d be a little upset that you conned me into buying you a new skirt yesterday.”

“Okay, I’ll wait until the day after.” She ran off before I could dot her one.

I did some of the survey before I collected the girls and another wonderful day was pretty well over. Okay, there was still time for things to happen in the evening, but I was keeping my fingers crossed that they didn’t.

Simon came home with Sammi who was still walking about with a silly expression on her face–oh, I forgot to tell you, Sammi is in love, smitten, captivated, call it what you will but she loves her new boyfriend. She’s due for surgery next week, Julie is as jealous as hell–not about the surgery, she’s been done and is quite happy with it, rather the boyfriend bit–she seems unable to hold on to one for more than a couple of weeks. So while Sammi walks about with a silly expression, Julie looks like she just had a demand from the tax office.

Talking of boyfriends, Phoebe has one and I suppose that really annoyed Julie. I don’t know why she can’t keep one, she seems to look the part and certainly acts it. I did wonder if it was revealing her history but apparently she only got to that stage once and he was gone like a proverbial rocket. That took me weeks to build up her self esteem again.

Sammi had gone out to meet with her precious Rudy–yeah, Rudolph, don’t know if he has a red nose or not. He’s into computers as well and originates from Croatia or somewhere like that. I suppose once she’s had her surgery, if he wants to see her he’ll have to come here–then Simon will get his chance to cross examine him. He’s been looking forward to playing that role for yonks.

Julie and I were seated at the kitchen table doing some sewing. I was repairing some of the girl’s school clothing–missing buttons and so on and she was doing some of the overalls they use in the salon, the ones they put over the customers. The Velcro stuff round the neck tends to pull off or tear other bits. I showed what to do and she was a willing student and has become quite good at sewing. I first showed her a couple of months ago and she’s been doing it by herself ever since.

I got fed up and stopped for a tea break, she agreed to one as well but continued sewing while I made the drinks. “D’you think I’ll ever have a man?” she asked as she rethreaded her needle.

“I don’t see why not, sweetheart.” I made the tea and waited a moment or two before pouring it.

“I just don’t seem to meet any worth the effort and work is so tiring. What’s the point of it all–just work to bed, every day.”

“Arguably life is futile because we all die one day, but the corollary is that we might as well enjoy ourselves if we can while we work our way through it and if possible, help one or two people as we go.” I passed her a mug of tea and biscuit.

“Thanks. D’you think there is anything after this place–I mean after we die?”

“I don’t know any more than anyone else, there are times when I think I’ve seen Billie and that reassures me but it might all be self delusion.”

“Does that matter?”

“I suppose it doesn’t providing we don’t surrender our lives too easily.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Like these suicide bombers who are often very little older than kids.”

“But if they believe...”

“They’ve been conned into thinking that, it makes me cross that Saudi Arabia spends thousands if not millions on fundamentalists who go off and stir up trouble elsewhere but it won’t take refugees from Syria because they’re likely to be Shiia, so they end up in Europe in a culture that is even more alien to them than Saudi would have been.”

“I didn’t know that,” she said sipping her tea.

“There was something on the radio earlier talking to some woman who has been moved from pillar to post as a refugee with her children and has finally been allowed to stay in Austria. Her daughters are both suffering PTSD by the sound of it and obviously miss their homeland but it was no longer safe to stay there.”

“Syria is a mess, some woman we had in this morning was sending money she’d collected from her friends–I gave her a tenner.”

“Some hundred thousand people have died and five million have been displaced, I think mess sums it up quite adequately.”