The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2490 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I awoke feeling better than I had for days. I tried to work out why. It was still dark and getting colder and wetter, the country was in a mess and run by morons with some total idiots threatening to vote for a party which now had one MP and whose only policy was pulling out of the European Union, which would cause even more gloom and doom. Sometimes it really does feel like the loonies are running the asylums.

Given this and the fact that the state of wildlife was dire, why did I feel so good? Did I not understand the seriousness of the situation? Actually I did, and I was feeling good because I was going to do something about it. Today, I was going to start organising my distance learning courses.

The radio came on, ‘This is Radio 4, the news on Sunday November the ninth.”

Sunday? I thought it was Monday. Am I going nuts or just crazy? It was the day when Armistice Day is celebrated. Apparently we lost eight hundred and eighty eight thousand, two hundred and forty six lives during the Great War. That is disgraceful. During the Second War we could lose that to a single bomb, or rather the enemy did. I don’t know if the atomic bomb frightened the Japanese but it frightens me, especially when you consider who might have them nowadays, including Israel, Pakistan, Russia, India and so on. Given that India and Pakistan loathe each other, it’s hardly a safe situation. Is Russia safe with that pigmy in charge—he’s smaller than Tom Cruise.

I leant over and switched off the alarm. “Thank you,” mumbled Si from behind me.

“Want a cuppa?” I asked thinking I could do with one myself.

“Good idea.”

I scrambled out of bed and ran downstairs to put the kettle on. “Ye’re up early thae morn.” I spun around, Tom was walking to the kitchen with the Observer.

“Yeah, I fancied a cuppa.”

It transpired that he’d walked Kiki and fed Bramble—he didn’t have much choice because she’d have muscled in and taken Kiki’s breakfast off her. Despite me knowing she’d been fed didn’t stop her trying to convince me she hadn’t and therefore to try and con some milk from me—or rather the bottle I had in my hand.

Milk isn’t good for cats, they can’t digest it. They can also get diarrhoea from it, so I don’t give her much cow juice. If I’m feeling benevolent I might buy the odd carton of cat milk, which varies in price quite a lot at different shops. Basically it’s two hundred millilitres of reduced lactose milk and for the price they charge would be more expensive than petrol or diesel. Mind you they couldn’t drink Diesel or petrol anyway, so a poor comparison.

“You going to watch the Armistice parade?” I asked Tom.

“Och, it’s today is it?”

“Fraid so,” I sat down to drink my tea. Portsmouth is a naval town, so there’d be ceremonies most of the day.

I suppose it’s good we remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, though most of us have had no real experience of war, so we don’t really appreciate what it’s all about. Apparently a plot was discovered to bomb an armistice parade. That could have been catastrophic; why people want to do such things, baffles me. According to the local press, a radicalised lad from Pompey was killed in Syria. Okay, he was from an Islamic family but why does he want to get involved in someone else’s squabble. Because some prat on the internet convinced him to by telling lies about everything. Young men, bodies swimming in hormones, with few prospects of future employment, especially if they’re graduates feel resentful about the system and start to listen to alternate lifestyles. If it’s cleverly done they don’t even know it happened. Subliminally manipulated.

That teenagers see things in black and white makes them especially vulnerable and extremely dangerous—they don’t stop to think and certainly won’t see consequences. My mind had gone full circle and was back to the Armistice Day parade.

“We culd tak the bairns tae see it.”

“See what, Daddy?”

“Yon parade.”

“I don’t think they’d understand what it’s all about.”

“Mebbe.”

“I’m not sure that I do and I’ve been here longer than them. I mean, do you, given the Second World War finished nearly seventy years ago?”

“Of course I dae, ye scunner, whit d’ye think I am? I remember men wi’ legs blown aff, an’ thae unemployment.”

“Your dad was a doctor wasn’t he?”

“Aye, worked himsel’ into an early grave.”

“I’m sorry—how old was he?”

“Fifty seven, died frae exhaustion.”

I felt like saying, I know the feeling, but he’d probably take it the wrong way, he can be a bit touchy now and again. He was looking beyond me obviously having some form of dialogue with himself. I saw his eyes moisten and laid my hand on his. It took him a moment to realise what had happened and when he did he smiled in a loving but sad sort of way.

“Ye’re a guid lassie, Cathy. He’d hae loved ye just as much as I dae.”

“Did he know your Catherine?”

“Aye but only as a bairn, he did notice she wisnae very boyish.”

“Oh?”

“Aye, he said she wis more like a girl than a boy.”

“That happened to me as well apparently, so it seems bystanders do see more of the game, don’t they?”

“Aye, sometimes.” He took his coffee and the paper down to his study and I made Si a cup of coffee and took it up to him. He had company in bed—two shameless hussies, Cate and Lizzie. How had she got into the bed. Si was fast asleep.

“Did you help Lizzie into my bed?” I asked Cate.

“I might have,” she said acting very coy.

“I need to know if you did sweetheart.”

“Is you cross with me?”

“No, of course not.” I woke Simon and gave him his coffee then took Lizzie down for her breakfast followed by Cate, then Danielle—oh poo she was playing football today and I forgot—again.

“You comin’ to watch me?”

“If I can get someone to watch the little ones. Trish might be interested.”

“Nah, it’s gonna rain, she don’t do rain.” I recalled her getting all flustered when her zip jammed last week.

“No, I don’t suppose she does. Go and ask your dad, he’d probably come.”

“He said he had things to do this morning.”

“He didn’t tell me.”

“Oops, have I dropped him in it?”

“No, of course not,” I said while trying to think if he’d said anything about Sunday morning. It was probably work related. I’ll have to ask Jacquie and Julie to babysit. Trish and Livvie with Mima will be okay, they’ve probably got homework to do anyway and as it’s going to rain they won’t be worried about not going anywhere.

Julie and Phoebe arrived at the table. “What are you doing up?” I almost gasped.

“I’m fine thank you mother.”

“How are you, darling?” I asked facetiously.

“We’ve got a course arranged at Winchester.”

“Oh, you making sandwiches?”

“Nah food is provided.”

“A course on what?”

“Some laser thingy to ease wrinkles. We’re not gonna buy one, they’re about five or six grand.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, but at least we get a chance to try them.”