The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3017 by Angharad Copyright© 2016 Angharad

---

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.
*****

The tea break helped me relax and I did sleep for a few hours afterwards. The next morning the bow, arrows and target arrived and we spent a couple of hours setting it all up and the older girls and Stephanie having a go at target practice. We lost two of the arrows and I decided it was probably safer having the two thugs wandering about than Stephanie or Livvie behind a loaded bow.

The recurve looks a bit like a capital B, especially with the arrow in place and it gets its power from the tension between the bent shafts and the pull on the bowstring, so by pulling the string you build energy into the shaft which is then returned to the string when you release it. The energy is then transmitted to the arrow and simple physics determines that the harder you pull it the faster the arrow flies within certain limitations.

Stringing the bow can be dangerous and as you have to bend the shaft down to get the string loop over the end, if you release it too quickly it can take the end off your finger, even with a twenty pound pull. So I told them that none of them were to try and put the bow together or fire it without me supervising it.

Danielle had some sort of idea of using one as did Trish, but I wasn’t that impressed with their efforts. At Danni’s age, I was a far better marksman and that couldn’t be due to testosterone, because it doesn’t work in my body.

After lunch we went to Mahon or Mao as the locals call it. We had a wander around the harbour area and Stephanie seemed most impressed, though I told her I thought Ciutadella was a far prettier city, though at the other end of the island would have taken longer to reach.

Before we went to the supermarket, I found a camera shop and bought a decent but much cheaper pair of binoculars and telescope. “I thought you already had those,” said Stephanie even though it was none of her business.

“If that’s what they were after, then they are unlikely to mug me for these ones, which although adequate are nowhere near as good as the Swarovski.” I felt pleased because I haggled about the price and got the tripod for half price. At the supermarket we spent a fortune on essentials like, a football, hot wax treatment for hair and green nail polish. Thankfully we only needed more fruit and veg, bread and milk. I’d brought a couple of hundred teabags with me, so with milk the vital essentials were easily acquired.

Supermarkets all seem very similar these days, presumably based upon the US model, with the fruit and veg by the door and the meat further away to make sure you have to walk past loads of goods to reach it. In common with British supermarkets, the cost of chocolate also seems to have gone astronomic. I suspect some of it is cost of materials but also some profiteering by the manufacturers and retailers.

The other week I saw some Lion bars, which I enjoy, and they were now about seventy nine pence and half the size of the Rowntree’s original bars, which were then about fifteen pence. I suppose as confectionary becomes secondary to these food giants, especially given the supposed moves towards healthier eating to reduce obesity, chocolate is going to become dearer and dearer as they attempt to profit in a falling market. I certainly eat less than I used to and don’t encourage the girls to eat that much—‘it’ll give you spots’ works much better than my warnings of obesity or diabetes.

On returning to the house the ball was played with both on the patio and in the pool, the latter after I complained about it hitting the windows. Stephanie kept an eye on the little ones while I cooked up a large pot of spaghetti and bolognaise sauce.

Because the play was becoming more boisterous we had the inevitable injuries, and before dishing up dinner had to stick plasters and antiseptic on various cut and grazes. I did ask Stephanie, being a doctor and all that, but it seemed she had even less idea than I did. “Never ask a doctor to do a dressing for you,” she said, “they’re absolute rubbish because they always delegate that bit to the assisting nurse.” Sounded about right.

“So what will you do if Emily has need of dressings?”

“Take her to A&E or minor injuries, or bring her over to you.”

Ask a silly question...

Dinner was over in a relatively short time as the brood swallowed down the pseudo Italian food in minutes—it’s one of their absolute favourites. I then insisted they sit and read for an hour and that no one was to be in the pool after eight o’clock.

Amazingly, they did as I asked them and they even went to bed after showering and drying their hair. I left Danni to supervise that while I cleaned up the dinner dishes and set the washing machine going. It looked like a load a night if they continued dirtying their clothes at the same rate each day. I hung them all out on the rotary line and expected them to be dry by morning. It was quite warm.

Stephanie and I then settled down for a chat over a glass of wine or two and that night I went off to sleep very well. I awoke at six, feeling quite relaxed if not entirely refreshed and watched Danielle sleeping. She’s becoming quite a pretty girl with a super figure and despite her fourteen years, asleep she looked much younger.

When she awoke I quickly shifted my attention to my book so as not to embarrass her, as adolescents are renowned for their thin skins and total self consciousness. In reality, Danni is probably better than most girls her age who are getting up to all sorts of things. Her football takes much of her attention and schoolwork the rest. That she wants to be a teacher means she does care about her homework and because she needs the odd time off school to play for Portsmouth or England, she works hard at her schoolwork to maintain a sense of cooperation with the teaching staff.

As she seems to be becoming interested in boys, I’m hoping that isn’t going to distract her from her studies. So far it doesn’t seem to be, but there’s plenty of time yet. It intrigues me that someone who as a boy seemed completely heterosexual has become a girl and the orientation appears to have flipped completely and she is now a heterosexual girl.

I checked on the others and they were still asleep—all that fresh air I suppose—and the fact that mainland Europe is an hour ahead of us, so if they were still sleeping on a UK cycle, I had a short time to have my breakfast in peace.