Easy As Falling Off a Bike pt 3054

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The Daily Dormouse.
(aka Bike, est. 2007)
Part 3054
by Angharad

Copyright© 2016 Angharad

  
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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.
*****

I travelled home on the train and although my emotions wanted to vent I managed to keep them under control and even do the crossword in the i newspaper. This is a paper which began life as a tabloid digest version of the Independent but has since been sold by them to another company, but it’s a serious paper which is smaller than any of the heavies but I knew would keep me distracted for the time it would take me to get home.

From Portsmouth station I took a cab to the house to discover that Simon was staying in London. It didn’t surprise me, perhaps I had been somewhat harsh on him though had he been presenting a paper I would have either supported him or at least abstained if it crossed too many of my boundaries. What is so annoying, is that he supports what I did in principle but not where it appears to compromise his precious bank. I suspected there would be words between him and his dad when they next met. I don’t intend to say anything further about it, I also expect his side to win the argument in the end—the lure of money will paper over the cracks in the board and just li’l old me will vote against it. They’ll probably take a pragmatic view and decide the Amazon basin is doomed anyway so they might as well make the profits as anyone else. The same sort of skewed logic would enable me to kill them all before the vote because they’re all going to die at some point anyway. If we don’t act morally most of the time, we are nothing but successful apes and even some of those can empathise and predict behaviour in their fellows. How come half the humans I know can’t?

The girls were pleased to see me though they weren’t as enamoured of the mushroom quiche David had made. I thought it was delicious and ate it with the new potatoes and stir fried vegetables he provided. The peppers gave the meal a splash of colour but the younger ones complained all the same, ‘Woss this?’ pointing at the piece of pepper Peter Piper picked or something along those lines. The feather plucker is funnier if a bit nearer the bone—not literally, unless we’re talking wings—you know what I mean, only my husband appears not to.

I felt tired but when the girls asked if we could do some sewing, I could hardly deny them, so after they showed me they’d all finished what homework they had, we spent the next hour and a half looking at patterns and modifying them to size and cutting out bits of cloth for skirts. Apparently, this desire to sew was triggered by Tom coming home with half a bolt of cloth, which they all seemed to like. It had pictures of hares performing various stereotyped activities, boxing, scratching, bounding and shagging—oops cancel that last bit, the cloth got overlapped.

Danielle had got a bit bogged down in calculating her carbon footprint—it’s something we do as an exercise on our environmental science course—it’s a new one I asked to be set up two years ago. It started this month, but we have a reasonable quota of students, so we can afford to heat the rooms if the temperature falls below minus eighteen, but only to fifteen centigrade by which time they’ll be so cold, fifteen degrees will seem sub tropical. Only joking, we switch the heating on when it gets to minus ten.

There are quite a few of these carbon calculator devices about which are all inaccurate and at best make an educated guess at one’s carbon footprint. Living in a house the size of a small mansion and driving a gas guzzler car, albeit a reasonably efficient one, my own footprint would be quite a bit bigger than teenage girl who walks or cycles much of the time.

After the sewing bee, I managed to convince the girls to go to bed or they’d have to wait until Christmas for another one. Julie noticed I was a bit stressed and sat herself alongside me in the kitchen and asked what was wrong.

“I think your dad made a huge mistake in asking me to marry him.”

This caused her to spit tea everywhere and choke herself, once breathing air again not tea, she asked me why I’d said it.

“We’re incompatible on so many levels.”

“So? So are most married couples.”

“I upset him after the meeting.” She asked me how so I explained how we were on opposite sides regarding the loans to the Brazilian government and the fudge of a compromise that Henry eventually cobbled together. But at least he’d supported me whereas Simon had not.

“Isn’t this just a clash of philosophies? I mean you two still love each other don’t you?”

“I love your dad, yes, but I can’t speak for him especially after today’s meeting.”

“That’s the important bit, that you still love him even if he was wrong.”

“You’re siding with me?”

“Well hello, of course I am. If the Amazon dies so do we eventually.”

“I’m not sure if it’s that cut and dried but the suggestion is it would interfere with climate change negatively and enhance or expedite climate change. The dreadful thing is we’re sentencing dozens if not hundreds of species to extinction before we’ve even catalogued them. So we don’t even know what we’ve lost.”

“They paved paradise put it in a parking lot,” trilled Julie to Joni Mitchell’s classic anthem to modern living but it was Bob Dylan who got the Nobel prize. I suppose I shouldn’t grumble, it’s not like I’ll ever be a contender unless they have one for dormouse juggling.

I made us some more tea and on extracting a promise that she wouldn’t inhale this mugful, she could have it. Stella smelt the teapot and came to join us.

“What’s this between you and Simon?” she demanded.

“He’s my husband,” I said shrugging.

“Look yer, wacko Watts, what was Sammi on about you two squabbling at a board meeting?”

“We did not squabble at a board meeting, we simply adopted opposing sides on an item.”

“Yeah, but you presented the item.”

“So, we have different philosophies regarding money and ecological principles.”

“He doesn’t have any principles—unless it makes him money.”

“That’s a bit unfair, Stel, normally he supports my less than economically sound ideas.”

“You saved them millions—well a few quid anyway by turning down the heating and putting in double glazed Jacuzzis in the public areas or something like that.”

“It was hot tubs in the car parks,” I said and Julie snorted more tea over herself.

“You two are absolutely barking, I’m going to bed before I drown myself or go as nutty as you two old biddies. You’re madder than Mrs Bismark.”

“Who?” we both said.

“Oh this strange German lady—she’s been here years—but she’s built like a battle cruiser and battle ship grey hair, so we call her Mrs Bismark.”

“Not to her face I hope?”

“Duh—her name is perfectly normal, like Smith or Jones.”

“Or Watts,” offered Stella, “but then she’d have to be certifiably bonkers...”

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Comments

Sensible man Simon...

Not because of not supporting his wife ,Mainly because he stayed back in London.... Its probably fair to say the atmosphere back in cameron towers would not have made for any nice comforting bedtime cuddles for either of them, So keeping some distance between them for a short while is probably best for them both, Stella obviously knows her brother well when she talks about his love of money , Perhaps now he needs to spend some of it in order to mollify his wife ..... Not that its going to be easy ..

Kirri

Stella pops up o start to

Stella pops up o start to defend her brother, by reflex, then agrees with Cathy.
After all, she was hired, then made a board member because of her profession.
Smart move by Simon, staying in town, that is.

Karen