The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2238 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“It’s good to have the girls home,” said Si as we snuggled down for the night.

“They’ve been giving the younger ones the run around, fetching and carrying for them.”

He chuckled, “I doubt they’ll do it for very long.”

Not if I have anything to do with it, they won’t. “Are you working tomorrow?”

“No, I have loads of Christmas shopping to do.”

“Um, darling, I don’t know yet if David organised all the shopping for the Christmas dinner.”

“What? Surely he ordered a turkey?”

In Africa, I think they call one the size we have, an ostrich. “I don’t know, he was so poorly, I sent him home.”

“Yeah, but surely he’ll be able to tell you, won’t he?”

“I hope so, apart from the fact that I don’t know where I’d get a two ton turkey on Christmas Eve, I don’t know what I’d do if a second one turned up.”

“Oh that’s easy—cook it.”

“I shall probably spend much of Christmas day cooking bloody turkey as it is...”

“Well then, problem solved...”

“That I don’t wish to spend the whole of it doing so.”

“Oh, typical woman, bloody selfish.”

I was just about to make him as dead as fresh plucked turkey when I realised he was winding me up. “Pig.”

“Oink oink.” Was all he said before he started laughing, “Honestly, woman, you do take life so seriously, don’t you?”

“Simon, my stress levels are somewhere out beyond the moon. I have two post operative children to keep an eye on plus a dinner to cook, plus organise the Christmas tree and other decorations.”

“Okay, first point: we have a qualified nurse in the house—what’s wrong with her pulling her finger out of her arse and helping?”

“She does usually, but she’ll have shopping to do. I have some too, apart from the food, I’ve a few things I want to get.”

“Remember, you said we weren’t doing presents to each other.”

“Who said I was buying anything for you?” I asked, although it was him I was looking to buy for.

“No one, but just in case you’d forgotten...”

“I hadn’t and if you remember I told the children a while back they weren’t getting opulent presents this year.”

“Opulent—in this house?”

“I think a nine year old with an iPad is pretty opulent.”

“Nah, just think if Einstein had had one, he’d have done his theory of relativity by lunch and gone home early for Christmas.”

“I think he was Jewish.”

“Was he? You do surprise me.”

“Duh?”

He lay back and laughed—bugger, he’d caught me twice now.

We finally went off to sleep but I had dreams of being pursued by plucked ostriches—can’t think why. Apparently, an ostrich has a kick powerful enough to kill a full grown lion. As far as I know turkeys don’t.

I woke at seven feeling I’d missed some hours between bedtime and now. The alarm was switching into the Today programme and I had better things to do than lie there and listen to it. Lizzie whimpering in the distance was one. The storm that was coming was causing loads of worries and lots of people had lost their power or telephones, or been flooded. I felt sorry for them and wondered what we’d do in that position. I think that would be the final straw—although we do have a generator in the garage somewhere. If Maureen comes to do the fencing I might ask her to check it over, if she has time.
I struggled out of bed and picked up Lizzie, who smiled when she saw me and started saying, “Ma ma ma.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her I wasn’t. It took me half an hour to feed her and Simon captured the bathroom while I had the boob sucker distracted.

Jacquie fed the young uns, by that I mean she got them breakfast, apparently Julie and Phoebe grabbed a very quick breakfast—a few slices of bread and left. I learned afterwards they have a toaster at the salon, a microwave and fridge as well as the kettle. They’d eat as they worked—in between clients.

Lacking the extra muscle of Danni, I got Simon and Jacquie to bring the Christmas tree into the house, scraping off all the woodlice and spiders that had made the bottom of the tub their home, before they did so. I laid out a plastic sheet and told Trish it was her job to make sure the tree had at least a couple of litres of water a day—a large pop bottle was about that amount.

I phoned Ingrid and David was quite poorly. She assumed he’d ordered everything but she wasn’t prepared to disturb him he seemed so ill—she was waiting for the doctor to call. I nearly told her we were waiting for Santa to do the same.

I was poking about at the paperwork he keeps when a large van drove up and we were delivered of a turkey. How the hell they expect me to put that in and out of the oven, I have no idea—it must be thirty pounds if it’s an ounce. Jeez, I’ll end up with a prolapse or a hernia.

I was mulling this over when Simon said he was off to get a few things and disappeared before I could ask him to get some stuff for me. I found the sausage meat next to the turkey in the box plus a pound of smoked bacon. I was feeling a mixture of hunger and despair as I checked all these things.

I decided I was going to cook the bird over night on a low gas. I was going to wrap it in foil after basting with my special brew and dusting with seasoning. The sausage meat would form the basis of the stuffing and could be done on Christmas day.

During the morning of Christmas day, the power used by people cooking their dinner can cause a drop in the supply and the same happens with gas. So by doing it early, hopefully, I’d miss out on that and also have a very tender bird to serve for our Christmas dinner.

I checked the vegetables and we had plenty of those, plus the fact that I saw Tesco were due to drop us a whole pile of food. I checked the cupboards and freezers. There’d be just about enough room to store it all. It was about this time I realised I’d not had any breakfast, so I had some tea and couple of digestive biscuits—any weight I lost would soon be recaptured with the ritual eating over the next few days.

I did jacket potatoes for lunch with cheese and coleslaw or baked beans for them who wanted it. Simon returned and ate his share before falling asleep in the chair. Trish and Livvie had done their best to decorate the tree helped by Stella who announced she was out that afternoon. I echoed her statement. I had shopping to do and was going to do it—though quite what I was going to get Simon, I had no real idea. I mean what d’you give a man who has everything and is exceedingly wealthy? Yeah, I know, penicillin, but seriously, what could I get him? Then an idea came to mind—a set of flies—not for his trousers, but for fishing—either that or the stuff to tie his own.

I sent a text to Henry, ‘Does Si tie his own flies? C xx.’

His reply: ‘No he uses a zip like everyone else. H xxx’

How the hell do they manage to run a bank?