The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2327 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

After lunch, the children wanted to go out in the sunshine—yeah, sunshine at Easter in England, okay it’s not quite Easter, they forecast rain for Easter Sunday, so back to normal. No wonder the Brits talk about the weather so much, we have more varieties of it than Heinz. Back to my story, the children wanted to go out and Trish also wanted to go. When I said no she got tearful and then threw a tantrum, shouting and banging things. Stella and I tried to ignore it and suddenly it stopped. I checked on Trish, she was sitting in the lounge looking exhausted.

“Tired?” I asked and she nodded. “Now can you see why I said no?” She nodded again and we had a little cuddle during which she apologised for her behaviour. “I’ll accept your apology and say nothing more provided it doesn’t happen again.”

“It won’t, Mummy,” she said and cuddled into me again. I was aware that she was re-energising herself from me, but whether it was a conscious thing or not, I didn’t know. I let her do it until I felt my own levels starting to drop and then closed myself down—I just imagine a blanket covering me which is energy impermeable and it stops leaking from me. Trish finally curled up on the sofa and had a snooze for an hour.

The others came in red faced and clamouring for drinks which Jacquie got for them the noise they made, somewhat akin to a colony of gulls, woke Trish and she came out to the kitchen yawning.

“You shoulda come out with us, it’s brill in the sun,” urged Danni.

“I told you all that Trish has to take it easy for a few weeks, she was very ill only a couple of days ago,” I said loudly and it was sufficient to kill the suggestions.

“Oh, okay, but we can still go out can’t we?” was Danni’s response to my reprimand.

“If you behave yourselves.” They all dashed out leaving me with Trish who yawned again but seemed to have learned her lesson—for now, at least. “I have some shopping to do, would you like to come?”

“Not really, Mummy, but I’ll have drink and read my book.” Jacquie made her a drink and I asked what she was reading. “Not quite sure, it’s something like, Contemporary Quantum Theory.”

“Just something light then?”

“Yeah,” she laughed and went back to the lounge.

“Can she actually understand a book on that level?” asked Jacquie rinsing the glasses.

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“But I mean most girls of nine are reading silly romance stories or Famous Five.”

“She reads those as well, but she has a brain which seems to require constant challenge. Remember she has a remarkable IQ, so I suspect she understands more of her physics than I would.”

“Isn’t she in danger of missing out on childhood if she’s building nuclear bombs an’ things.”

“I’ll keep an eye on her and try not to let detonate any she makes, though finding enough Plutonium might be an issue. I keep telling her to design a reactor for nuclear fission rather than fusion, but so far she hasn’t been interested.”

“You’re taking the piss, Mummy.”

“Me?” I was but she started it.

I went off to do the shopping grabbing the list David had given me. He’d popped back to his cottage for an hour but was due to return to do some fish dish for us on appropriately, Good Friday. Seems an odd name for the day the Romans are supposed to have killed Jesus. I mean what’s good about it? Then what do I know?

Being mid afternoon the frenzied shopping we usually have seemed to have died down and things weren’t too unbearable. In Waitrose I bumped into Sister Maria and as we were both pretty well finished shopping we opted to leave the groceries in the car and go for a coffee together.

I insisted on paying as I’d consumed several cups of hers at the school at various times and she accepted with good humour. Sitting in a corner of the coffee shop, she asked after the children.

“They’re all okay though Danni is still recovering from pneumonia and Trish from meningitis.”

“Oh, good God,” she said, “that’s really serious.”

“Yes, but she’s on the road to recovery providing she rests enough.”

“That’s hard for a nine year old.”

“Tell me about it, we had a tantrum earlier when the others went out to play.”

“Oh dear, it’s very difficult.”

“Isn’t it just, but she exhausted herself and ended up having a snooze on the sofa.”

“I’m sure that’s what she needed.”

“She said she was going to read as I was coming out.”

“What may I ask is she reading?”

“Something light.”

“Oh good.”

I smirked, “I think she said something like Contemporary Quantum Theory.”

“And she’s just nine years old, bejabers, she’s a girl an’ a half that one.”

“She’s a little girl with a brain the size of small planet.”

“I remember the Hitchhikers Guide, too.” She smiled, “Forty two, if I recall correctly.”

“You are quite correct, though in his case the magic number was forty nine.”

“I don’t follow?” Sister Maria looked puzzled.

“He died at age forty nine.”

“Goodness, that’s young by today’s standards.”

“Quite apparently he had a heart attack caused by a narrowing of his coronary arteries, which was unsuspected as he was a relatively fit person. In fact I believe he died after leaving a gymnasium.”

“So does exercise do us any good?” she asked.

“I have no idea if it actually does any good except most of us feel better for doing some. I know I always feel better for a bike ride.”

“I wonder when you’ll start to bring the girls to school on bicycles.”

“When the driving skills of the homicidal maniacs called motorists improve by about five million per cent.”

“Oh, that bad is it?”

“Actually, no. That was an understatement. I suspect half of motorists had lessons from the Royal National Institute for the Blind, if my experiences are anything to go by. None of them seem to see cyclists and believe it or not being on a cycle path won’t necessarily protect you.”

“Goodness, how is that?”

“People park on them while dealing with mobile phone calls, they swerve up on to them to get round things, bits of damaged cars end up on them, they throw littler on them... shall I continue?”

“Ah no, I get the message, though I don’t park on them or drop litter or bits of my car on them, but I get the message.”

I blushed and considered myself told off, I suppose I had let go a bit of a rant but then I felt I had reason to as a significant number of drivers are total scum bags driving with no consideration for any other road user and dropping litter wherever they like. I consider they’re in the same category to those who dump old fridges or mattresses in hedgerows after dark being too lazy to go to the tip.

“I’m sure you don’t, but others do and it’s up to us who don’t to try and stop others doing it because it spoils the countryside and those of us who enjoy it.”

“I won’t disagree with that.”

I looked at my watch and suddenly realised what the time was, “Heavens, I have to go, David is waiting for some of the stuff I have in the car.” With that I bid her goodbye and rushed off.