Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 2244

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The Daily Dormouse.
(aka Bike, est. 2007)
Part 2244
by Angharad

Copyright © 2013 Angharad
All Rights Reserved.
  
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I woke up stiff and tired. I could hear the rain lashing against the windows and for a moment had to think where I was. The strange weight lying on me was Hannah, who appeared to be fast asleep. I carefully wriggled out from underneath her and went off to the loo–probably my main reason for waking. It was still dark. I went back to the dining room and she was sleeping peacefully on my sofa, so I took her one and tried to get off back to sleep. I suppose I must have achieved it because I was woken by Jacquie bringing me a cup of tea–it was half past nine. Hannah, had had breakfast and Julie had gone over with her to collect some clothes from the cottage. I was increasingly proud of my Julie.

Livvie and Trish were playing with the Wii in the lounge and Mima was helping to sort out the little ones. I allowed myself the luxury of a hot shower and after drying my hair combed it out and dressed in a pair of leggings and a long tunic type top, with some ankle boots on my feet. I was putting on a little makeup, trying to conceal the rings under my eyes–lack of sleep–when the phone rang. It was Simon. I hadn’t even noticed he wasn’t there.

“Where are you?” I demanded.

“Dad and Monica are asking if you’d all like to come out to the hotel for lunch and the use of the facilities?”

“I don’t, but the younger element might.”

“Well go an’ ask ’em.”

“Don’t give me orders,” I complained.

“C’mon, Cathy, time is of the essence.”

“To you, maybe.” Taking the phone with me, I canvassed support from the younger family members and they all replied in the affirmative. When Julie and Hannah came back, she was enthusiastic about it and Hannah seemed to latch on to her and said the same.

In the end, Trish, Livvie, Julie and Puddin’ opted to go. I told Jacquie to go while she had the chance but she decided to stay with me. Stella agreed to go if I’d watch Fiona for her, Phoebe, who’d been in the loo when I asked who wanted to go, was in firm favour. I reeled off the list to Simon who said he’d send a minibus and for those who came to bring a towel and a sense of adventure. I suggested a swimming cossie might be useful as well.

An hour later the intrepid hotel goers left in a coach. How the guy who was driving it managed to turn it round in our drive astonished me. I have difficulty turning my Jag, but then I’d have problems parking anything bigger than a bicycle.

“Whit’s fer lunch, hen?

“No, we had turkey yesterday, I’m cooking chicken today.”

Tom looked at me in total bewilderment. “Whit?”

“I said, I’m not cooking any more poultry for a week or two.”

“Whit?”

“You heard you .”

“Aye, I did, but I didnae unnerstan’ ye.”

“You asked if I was making chicken.”

“When?”

“Just now, you asked what was for lunch and added chicken.”

He began to laugh for several moments. “Ye silly bugger, I said hen, meaning you.”

“I’m no chicken.”

“Aye, we’d noticed.”

“When was that?”

“Aboot every couple o’months by ma reckoning.”

I fed the Lizzie while the soup I eventually made simmered for a while. The mixture of smells coming from the pot and also the bread machine made me feel hungry, but didn’t seem to be doing much to keep little Lizzie awake as she kept nodding off at my nipple. I stroke her face and she’d suck a few more times, then off she’d go again.

Given the pressures of the past couple of days, I wasn’t really surprised. She felt relaxed with who she recognised as a maternal figure and as I offered her the ultimate delicacy, warm breast milk, she was well away–quite literally.

Cate pestered me for a suck herself and I had to let her up to get a few mouthfuls or face the consequences. It was safer to feed her.

I served up the lunch as Ingrid phoned. She was ready to come home. Tom put down his spoon and went to collect her. We all continued with our meals as neither of them would eat on their own, and it gave us a chance to catch up with a few other things. I put on some boiling ham, we wouldn’t be eating turkey after the soup was gone. I’d decided on ham with parsley sauce, new potatoes, carrots and broccoli. I could have done sprouts but I suspect none would have eaten them. Meems kept the little ones entertained as I got on with the dinner–changing the water in the ham. It wasn’t entirely necessary. It was from a local butcher who cures his own ham and gammon, which is delicious. So there wasn’t loads of salt washing out, so I only changed things once and kept the water to make pea and ham soup tomorrow.

I let Tom and Ingrid finish their lunch before I asked for a progress report from Ingrid on our erstwhile chef. I made us all a cuppa and sat at the table with them.

“He had a heart attack.”

“Wow.”

“Brought on by pneumonia. Took them a while to identify what had happened and put him on antibiotics. A few more minutes and he’d have died at home. His heart stopped in the ambulance.”

I felt myself go cold–it was that bad. So why didn’t the blue energy show itself? Surely it wouldn’t have let him die, would it? It had better not, or I would wash my hands of it.

“The prognosis?” I asked.

“He’s in intensive care, but they think he’ll pull through. I’m afraid he’s going to be out of commission for a long while.”

“Oh well they’ll have to get used to eating soup and fish and chips quite often,” I replied trying to indicate we’d manage until he came back.

“I’m sorry about that, perhaps Simon can find a temporary cook until my David is well enough to resume his duties.”

“Relax, I wasn’t complaining. We’ll cope. He’s a family treasure, so we all want him back in top form.”

“Aye, we dae,” seconded Tom.

“Oh, I thought you were...”

“No, Ingrid, we weren’t. I’d have thought you would have known that by now.” In fact she kept her distance. She did do some cleaning for me but it wasn’t that much, a few hours per day, which she often skipped to look after Hannah or David. I suspected she would be even less reliable while he was ill.

“I’d better get back and sort Hannah out, she’s probably watching the telly.”

“She’s not.”

“Oh, how d’you know?”

“She’s at Southsea with the others, Henry invited all who wanted to go to do so. She’s gone swimming.”

“I wished she’d asked me first.”

“Relax, Ingrid; she’s having some fun after all the worry.”

“But her costume is a bit old.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not a beach in St Tropez, it’s a hotel and she’s a kid having some fun over Boxing day.”

“Hmm, okay, I hope she is enjoying herself.”

“I’m willing to bet she is.”

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Comments

Webbed feet?

Greetings

Thank you for another chapter of the saga.

Hope you are keeping your feet dry. Thankfully no high water close to me.

Brian

So nice to have the Dormouse back

hope the Taxes did not drive you too batty. Have 2 sets of taxes to do the quarterly business forms and our personal forms, though I am thinking of filing separately.

Goddess Bless you

Love Desiree

Welcome back

Glad to see you back in print. Whatever the reason for the break, you were right to take it.

Hope you had a happy break.

XX

Bevs.

bev_1.jpg

Good to see you back...

needless to say I missed you as did all the others who follow your most enlightening saga of English hi-brow living. I hope you were able to avoid the recent stormy weather. On my side of the pond, we have been in early winter low temperatures with unusually high winds - some gusts up to 90 kph. Temps were in the -20℃ region. Wind chills on the prairies were in the -50℃ region for a few days. We actually had a full day of rain in between cold spots which turned the surface of all items into sheets of very solid ice when the temp fell from +5to-5℃ in less than 2 hours.

I do have a question - what is gammon? Some sort of game? or a version of spanish hamon?

All the very best for a happy & healthy 2014.

Ruth

May the sun always shine on your parade

Miss Diagnosis.

Who is that? I never met her before. No blue light at all? Why did Shekinia not wish to save him?

Gwen

PS Nice to see you back.

Hmmm Premarin, as in birth control pills?

One can hope...

One can hope all ends up well with both Hannah and David... (Wouldn't surprise me to hear something happened at the Hotel...)

Also hope the trip doesn't end up causing issues for Hannah.

Wonder if "Social Services" waits until after the "new year" before descending on Cathy... for turning her last son into a daughter.

Thanks for getting back to this... From it's appearance, I'm hoping you're finished with the "tax man" for the year.

Annette

So pleased to

have Bike back, Hope everything is okay with you Angharad and your furry friends are looking after you.

Have to say that i am a little surprised that Ingrid does not seem to have got more involved with the Camerons, David gets on well with everyone and it does seem a little strange that Hannah has not mixed more with the Cameron children, It does make you wonder if their is a story to tell there maybe something is being hidden.

Hopefully David will recover his health, But like Cathy says it will be a long journey, Maybe in the interim if Cathy finds cooking allied to all her other jobs to much to cope with, She might consider going down the path of agency staff and all that entails , Yes i know it could be a risk but Cathy is only human and has a very limited amount of time for all her commitments..

Kirri