The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2790 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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About six o’clock the phone rang, it was Danni and she’d been injured and couldn’t ride home, could someone collect her and her bike. I decided I’d go and get her but with the bike rack on the back of the car. With Trish’s help, it took us less than ten minutes and while I keep thinking I’d like one that pulled out from under the car, this one worked perfectly and was transferrable providing the car had a towbar. I mean it’s not going to fit Simon’s F-type or his XK.

Phoebe is now driving Julie’s old Smart car and despite my goading Simon, he refused to buy Julie a Jaguar for her birthday, instead he got her an Audi A3. She wasn’t complaining. It wasn’t new, but it was pretty well immaculate and had less than forty thousand miles on the clock. She wasn’t complaining and spent almost as much time polishing it as she did driving it—the novelty would soon pass.

Trish came with me to collect Danielle as she’d taken the call though she didn’t think to ask Danni what the injury was possibly because she thought she’d be able to heal it anyway. I kept telling her she’d bite off more than she could chew one of these days.

We drove down to Fratton and Danielle was waiting with her bike by the gates. Her arm was in a sling. She’d scored two goals and was heading for a hat-trick when the opposition goalie body-checked her in mid-air and she landed on her shoulder. They thought it was only sprained.

Trish got into the back of the car after helping her sister into the front passenger. I was busy lifting bikes onto the rack and rather pleased that bikes were so much lighter than in the old days. It was still heavy enough but I managed it and then secured it with bungee cords, providing you don’t let go before it’s secured to the frame or the car it’s easier than straps or ropes. If you do let go, it can give you a nasty whack and possibly break a finger or two.

We got home and I helped Danielle eat her meal by chopping up all the meat which she ate one handed with a fork. Kiki and Bramble sat expectantly under the table hoping for pennies from heaven or the food equivalent.

“Was the goalkeeper penalised?” I asked.

“Yeah by our big centre forward—she took her out in the next attack—cracked some ribs. At least I can laugh,” she chuckled then said, ouch and discovered she couldn’t either. Trish had given up the idea of healing on her sister who she thought should wait to eat until afterwards. I think Danni was as hungry as she was in pain and she declared her enjoyment of her dinner—not a very common occurrence.

I was going to tell her that her ironing was waiting for her then realised she wouldn’t be able to do it anyway—that was when I offered her to have a go at her shoulder and she accepted.

It felt as if she bruising on the actual joint capsule which was swollen and thereby hurting. She squeaked that the energy was freezing cold but the swelling seemed to visibly reduce as I worked. I told her to leave her bra off for the rest of the evening. She grumbled but turned the mountains back into the molehills they were normally. I suppose we all do it when we’re young try to make things appear more impressive than they are. Since breastfeeding mine have remained larger, though the double cream no longer flows much to Simon and Lizzie’s disgust. It’s all right for them, they didn’t have to walk round with two milk churns on their chest which after a while get a bit heavy despite wearing a heavy duty bra. They are lighter now so at least I can wear pretty bras again, and recently bought one in a lovely burgundy/bronze colour. It probably sounds a bit Irish, but I know what I mean—they call it mahogany but they didn’t have the matching panties did they? Then I had a flash of inspiration I looked them up on line and got a special offer of three for two—good old M&S. All I have to do now is find time to go and collect them or get one of the others to do it for me.

They do free delivery to their stores and all you have to do is stand around in the queue for half an hour and collect them. There’s always a queue, I suppose because they don’t employ as many staff as they used to. My mum told me when she was girl each counter had a shop assistant and a till and of course all the bags were paper ones in those days. These days they’re all plastic and now we have to pay five pence for one—the object being to reduce the number of plastic bags in waste bins.

Mind you, I was looking at photos on the internet the other day of the damage the plastic rings things they use for holding cans of beer together. They had turtles which had got then stuck around their middles and the shells grew all deformed, so presumably would their innards. Man’s carelessness for everything and everyone but himself makes me very angry, our thoughtless selfishness needs to be prosecuted severely. Dropping litter should carry a minimum of a thousand pound fine or six months in prison, fly tipping of mattresses and building waste or old fridges, should carry a ten thousand pound fine and or a minimum of two years in prison. That might stop them a little, except much of it is done from ships. Sailors, or some of them deserve to drown for the contempt they show the oceans—washing tanks, dumping rubbish and polluting generally. Can’t we get it through our stupid skulls, this is the only planet we’ve got and we’ve practically messed it up for everyone and everything.

Mariners write of great rafts of floating plastic in all of the oceans of the world, bottles and bags or other wrappings. Walking along the strand line on almost any beach will also show you masses of plastic flotsam washed up along with miles of fishing line and bits of old nets besides the more traditional driftwood.

We landlubbers are just as bad and if curses worked, the selfish bar-stewards who dump bagfuls of fast food litter, which you see all over the place when you’re cycling, would spontaneously combust. I don’t know what their houses are like but they don’t deserve to even share a sty with pigs. As you can see, I’m a real people person.

I suppose we deserve the society we get, a bit like governments—not that I voted for this lot—because we’re largely a self absorbed bunch of vulgar rat bags, the world is in the mess it is. The tipping point is rapidly approaching and if we don’t stop global warming soon, millions of us will pay in all sorts of ways, including with our health or our lives. Sea levels are continuing to rise and storms will become more frequent and more violent. So better get yourselves a kite, it might be the only toy left to play with—and all this from thinking about a Marks and Spencer bra. (At least it didn’t remind me of the twin towers!).