Blithering Dormice (aka Bike) Part 564 by Angharad

Before I left Puddin’–I don’t like Desdemona, too Shakespearean for me–I took a photo of her on my mobile. I didn’t expect to be able to see much when I loaded it on to the computer, but it might shut the girls up for two ticks, and it would be something for Stella to have if it prints off reasonably well.

I collected the girls and we walked back to the car, where the ever patient Tom was fast asleep. When I first saw him, I thought he was dead for a moment–they way things were going, it wouldn’t have been that big a surprise–then I heard him snore as I opened the car door.

He woke up while I was putting the girls in their car seats. I was surprised they could actually keep as quiet at mice–what a stupid expression, as anyone who has had mice in their house will attest they run around between floors in hobnail boots or clogs–so as not to wake their ‘Gramps’. They silently sniggered, Mima to the degree of holding her hand over her mouth to stifle all but very high pitched squeaks, which only the average bat would hear comfortably.

“Oh ye’re back, och, I must hae nodded off.”

“Probably, the car gets a bit airless this weather.”

“Aye,” he said nodding in agreement. “Well hello, lassies, did you see your other granddad?”

“Yes, Gramps, we saw Grampa Henry, and Mummy went to see baby Desdoma,” offered Trish.

“That’s a mighty strange name,” said Tom.

“Try Desdemona.”

“Ach well, maybe I prefer Trish’s version, it’s a bit Moorish.”

“Oh, Daddy, how could you? That was a terrible pun.” He said nothing but smirked to himself.

The journey home was better than the outward one. I got the girls singing Ten Green Bottles, although Mima was using her own arrangement of the tune, we arrive home with windscreen intact and tempers easier than earlier.

I got some simple lunch and Tom went for a snooze and the girls I wrapped up and they played with their prams and dolls in the garden. I sat down with a cuppa in the kitchen, after doing the clearing up and fell asleep at the table. I woke when Trish came in for a drink and my tea was cold.

“Were you asleep, Mummy?”

I yawned and nodded, then said, “Yes, I was.”

“Were you tired?”

“I must've been.”

“Would you like me to make tea for you?”

“Thank you so much for asking but I think I’d better get the tea.” She looked a bit crestfallen. “Would you like to help me?”

“Oh yes please, Mummy.” How wonderful to hear someone enthusiastic about making a rather mundane meal.

Just then, Mima came charging in; “It’s waining big dwops.” I rushed out and brought in the two prams, the wheels would need wiping before they were taken back into the lounge, so I made the girls a drink and then wiped down their prams.

I made some more tea and took Tom a cup. He looked at me and smiled. “Ye’ve rather got yer hands fu’ whit with one thing an’ anither.”

“Just a bit, I’ll cope. It’s good to have you back home, Daddy.” I hugged him and he pulled me to sit on the bed with him.

“Look after yersel’ as well as the others, ye’ve muckle dark rings under yer eyes.”

“Tonight, I think I can get a better sleep, last night was too frantic for words.”

“Aye, well remember to do it, straight way efter ye’ve read ma bedtime story.”

“Shouldn’t you be telling me one, not the other way round?”

“Here’s one for ye: Once upon a time, there was a very pretty boy, who wis really a lassie. Anyway, she bumped into a local witch who helped her to sort that problem out. She fell in love with a handsome but dippy, prince who loved her back. The witch was his sister, and she was always in trouble, not having proper control of her broomstick or anything else–she got herself into family trouble.

“Meanwhile, our lassie, who was really a princess, was given two little angels to look after, not helped by the grumpy old curmudgeon of her adopted father, who went and got himself ill and added to her load. Just to make things more interesting, her fiancé’s father, the king, had a mishap and hurt his legs and the princess witch, gave birth to a very sma’ bairn, who will probably need the beautiful princess to help look after it.

“Because of the shortage of servants in the land, the beautiful princess had to look after the hoose as well as a whole brood of dormice, a university, make films and complete a PhD thesis–all while she does the other stuff, too.

“Because it’s a fairy story, she does it all and marries the prince and they live happily ever after. How ‘m I doin’?”

“I liked the last sentence best.”

“However, this is real life and instead, the beautiful princess looks ill and exhausted and unless she takes a break, she is going to be ill, and then who will look after her children?”

“I know, I know–but what can I do?”

“Leave me and go up to Bristol for a few days, take the girls with you.”

“What about you and Stella?”

“We’ll manage, I’ll get one of those agencies to come in and do some basic cooking and cleaning.”

“No, I can’t, Simon will give me a hand, he’s still keeping an eye on Henry.”

“If ye wait for Simon, ye’ll wait for a lang time.”

“I know, but I can’t go off and leave you all.”

“You don’t have a choice, I’ll speak to Simon, maybe he could cope with the girls for a day or two?”

“Oh no, I’m not leaving them, if I go so do they. I’d only worry so much that I wouldn’t rest. No, Daddy, it’s a nice thought, but I’m staying, I will rest a bit more though. You’ll see, a good night’s sleep and I’ll be fine.”

“Dae ye think I came up the Clyde in a banana boat?”

“No, why?”

“Why are ye treatin’ me as if I did?”

“Well you’re expecting me to drop everything and run off.”

“That is possible.”

“In your mind–yes, in mine–no, it isn’t. I don’t run away from troubles, they either follow you or wait for your return. I prefer to face them and resolve them.”

“Or by opposing, end them.”

“Have you swallowed the complete works of the bard?”

“No, I was just musing.”

“Anyway, methinks the old fart doth protest too much.”

“Is that the Bowdler edition?”

“Who?”

“In the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, they used a censored form of Shakespeare in schools, done by a man called Bowdler. It was awful.”

“I’ll bet.”

“So you won’t take a break?”

“No one is Bowdlerizing me.”

“Kiss me Kate,” he said smirking, and I pecked him on the cheek as he hugged me. “One day you’ll realise how special you are. We are so lucky to have you with us until you do.”

“I have no plans to leave you, Daddy, I wish you wouldn’t keep hinting at some mission I seem to have, because it’s scary. My life is busy enough now without saving the planet, or the dormouse or whatever. Besides, I don’t believe you.”

“You will one day. You are special.”

“Yeah, but only insofar as having no ovaries or other female bits, and my femaleness comes from pregnant horses’ pee–that’s how special I am.”

“One day, my lass, one day you’ll know.”

“Look, I need to drink my tea before it goes cold again and I’d better see what the girls are doing.”

When I went down the girls were playing quite happily with their doll’s house, so I downloaded the photo onto the computer while I drank my tea, it doesn’t take long with infrared.

At first I thought something was wrong with the picture, but as I tried to screen out what looked like light intrusion into the photo, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end–Puddin’ and I were surrounded by a blue-white light.