The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1162 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Waking up with Simon is always good, it reminds me that amongst all the three billion men in the world, one is special to me. I hope he feels the same about me, but knowing him he’d say something like, ‘Three billion women on this planet and I had to choose you!’ Depending upon which way he said ‘had’ would make or spoil my day. However, I’m not going to ask him anyway. Instead, I snuggled into his back.

It wasn’t for long, as Mima came in to cuddle with her daddy, and I got pushed aside. I could quite easily feel rejected by this, but I don’t, we have lots of little cuddles when Si is in work, so I’ll leave them to get on with it.

I showered and reflected on the night before–I have no remit to campaign for transgender people–perhaps I’d get them a bad name. I anticipated being able to slay the bigots with my classy rhetoric and sharp arguments–instead, they were so drunk, it was wasted on them or would have been if I’d been able to get into my stride. Simon was right, I was setting myself up as a martyr. In the end they made themselves look stupid because they turned on each other over what should have been personal matters–but I suspect, they never talk to each other in any meaningful way. Mind you, we don’t always do so either, which doesn’t seem to worry Simon half as much as it does me–then he’s a bloke, I’m not.

Downstairs, the girl’s trouped down for breakfast, they’d showered yesterday and as they didn’t have too dirty hair, I let them wash and dress themselves in their school uniforms. I’d called Danny who was yelling at Julie to get up, we could hear him quite clearly and her abusive answers back to him–some days it really did feel like we were a family.

Danny was playing football again today, and so was Trish. He was quite happy, she wasn’t. Once again I asked her to try her best and she promised she would. Livvie was keen to, play although by all accounts, Trish was the better player. Sometime I’d like to see her play with her ponytail bobbing about as she ran with the ball.

On the way home after delivering her and her sisters to school, I popped into the supermarket to fill up the fridge–having Simon home does make a difference, he eats the equivalent of half the rest of us.

While I was in there I grabbed my Guardian, and had a flick through the other papers. One of the tabloids carried a story about a ten year old Spanish girl who’s just had a baby. The sex of the baby was not being disclosed and I had a silly thought run through my mind, visualising the story going like so, ‘A ten year old girl has recently given birth to a baby. The ten year old mother whose age and sex can’t be revealed...’ Different cultures have different customs but I can’t see how any could allow this to be a societal norm, as surely the still growing mother would be damaged by the experience of carrying all that extra weight. Apparently the girl was Roma, or gypsy, so that explains that, suggested the tabloid. I decided it didn’t explain anything, and justified nothing.

I was really on my high horse now–assuming the actual pregnancy didn’t damage her badly, how equipped would a ten year old be to look after a baby? I can’t think that girls here are much different to those anywhere else in Europe, including Romania, I don’t believe an average ten year old has the mental and emotional resources to cope with motherhood and that applies to our own gymslip mothers who tend to be aged fourteen or fifteen, and still not able to cope without the support of a mother or other significant female. Even at my advanced years, I find it hard going so I can’t even speculate on how they see it–a millstone for fifteen years?

On speculation, after shopping I went back to the convent and walked down to the playing field and there were some girls playing football. I managed to pick out who I thought were Livvie and Trish and watched from a little distance.

Can’t say I know much about football, but I saw one girl score two goals and I hoped it was one of mine. Would they see me if I went any closer–surely not. I wasn’t actually in the school grounds but outside the fence on the pavement. I strolled a bit closer and then some more–it was Trish and Livvie and they both seemed to be playing as well as the others if not better. They were wearing different coloured vests over their football shirts, so I presumed they were on different sides.

Trish scored a goal and I knew it was her, because I could clearly see her. She high fived her friends and Livvie gave her a gentle push, being an opponent. The play began again and for some reason I swallowed some saliva awkwardly and began to cough, and it went on for a few moments until I was red in the face. Trish who was running towards the goal near me looked up and saw me watching her. She stopped and said loudly, ‘Mummy?’ when suddenly one of the defenders gave the ball a hard clout and it hit her full in the face and she went down like a sack of spuds.

I screamed her name and frantically climbed over the fence and ran to her. Her face was all bloody from nose and mouth and was swelling and she had difficulty breathing.

The games mistress, tried to order me away until one of the girls said I was Trish’s mum. She came back with a wet cloth to wipe away some of the blood and Trish revived a little.

Five minutes later, I had her lying on the back seat of my car as I sped towards the hospital, much to the disgust of the games teacher. Then I raced into A&E with her in my arms and insisted she be seen.

Ken Nicholls was on duty and recognised my hysterical rantings and told the nurse to find a cubicle for him to examine Trish. X-rays and ice packs later, I was reassured there was nothing broken as far as they could tell, but he told me to take her home and give her lots of love and blue light.

I felt so guilty, if I hadn’t been watching her she’d have been watching the ball and not me; and if I hadn’t insisted she play football, she wouldn’t have looked like a punch bag at this moment.

I was told to watch her and not let her sleep until bed time, and if she seemed to become drowsy, to call an ambulance because it could be a delayed concussion or shock. I felt really awful about it. Some mother I was–huh. I was totally disgusted with myself and to think I tried to take the moral high ground last night. I was a hypocrite and nothing else, unless you added failure as a mother.

By the time we got home I was ready to jump off Beachy Head, I was so full of self loathing. So when Jenny took over and helped Trish into the house I burst into tears.

Trish pulled free of Jenny and came over to me, “What’s the batter, Bubby?”

“It’s all my fault that you got hurt.”

“Doad be silly, Bubby, it happes, football is a dadgerous gabe–dow are you go-ig to heal by dose or dot?”